‘It’s Crazy’: The Scramble for Ancient Treasures After Ukraine’s Dam Disaster

One summer time night because the solar sank behind the Dnipro River, the mammoth waterway that bisects Ukraine, Anatolii Volkov walked alongside a river seashore, head down.

A Ukrainian archaeologist, Mr. Volkov regarded as if he was simply taking a stroll. But he was really inspecting the largely dried-up floor of a former reservoir that has revealed a treasure trove of artifacts after a catastrophic explosion on the Kakhovka dam despatched 4.8 trillion gallons of water gushing downstream, emptying the reservoir and scraping away the sand and silt that had lined the objects for hundreds of years.

“Look at this,” he stated.

He bent down and picked up an object about two inches lengthy. He rubbed his fingers over the grooves.

“Pottery shard,” he stated. “Bronze Age. Three thousand years old. At least.”

Even earlier than the struggle, Ukrainian archaeologists had their fingers full in an enormous nation wealthy with archaeological websites and never many knowledgeable diggers to check them. But when the battle erupted in February 2022, it made their painstakingly sluggish and methodical work that a lot tougher.

Russian troops smashed into historical past museums and looted priceless antiquities. The troopers and their struggle machines moved into archaeological websites, together with historic burial grounds. Some websites turned engulfed in frontline combating. So have many Ukrainian archaeologists themselves, who, like different professionals, have enlisted within the military to struggle for his or her nation. Some have been killed.

In that bleak tableau, the plethora of artifacts littering the reservoir space has been a small however welcome recompense. The dam was blown up in June, almost certainly by Russian forces attempting to swamp Ukrainian troops and reduce off one of many solely crossings left on the Dnipro. The destruction triggered horrendous flooding and drained the reservoir, which had been one of many largest lakes in Europe.

In the weeks since, Ukrainian archaeologists and scavenger hunters have found all types of issues: items of stone axes at the least 1,000 years previous; Nazi-era helmets; an previous bridge; Cossack cannon balls from the seventeenth century; and flint rock from the Russia-Turkey wars of the 18th century (a number of struggle stuff, really).

“There’s never been anything like this,” stated Yevhen Synytsia, chairman of the Ukrainian Association of Archaeologists. “It’s crazy.”

It’s additionally deeply significant.

The struggle in Ukraine is, at its coronary heart, a battle for Ukrainian id. Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s chief, has continuously belittled Ukrainian independence and brought the identical dim view of Ukraine as Soviet strongmen like Stalin and the czars earlier than him. In their eyes, the nation is nothing greater than a Russian appendage, missing a definite tradition, language and historical past.

This is exactly the place the Ukrainian archaeologists are available.

“We’re finding pieces of ancient culture, our ancient culture,” stated Viacheslav Sarychev, the scientific secretary of the Khortytsia National Reserve on the northern reaches of the reservoir space. “Piece by piece, we’re distancing ourselves from Russia.”

“This is extremely important to us,” he added.

The objects are washed, sorted, examined and cataloged. Mr. Volkov has lots of of them scattered throughout his desk and on the windowsill behind him on the Khortytsia reserve, the place he works. He’s only one member of a rising crew of archaeologists pouring in.

For a occupation that measures issues in centuries, the archaeologists really feel an uncommon stress to work quick. First, there are the “underground archaeologists,” as the true archaeologists name them, opportunists who’ve proven up in current weeks to sneak onto the lake mattress looking for items for the underground antiquities commerce.

Police officers have already apprehended a number of males strolling across the restricted areas with steel detectors and large headphones.

But then there’s the larger stress of all this potential historical past disappearing once more. Ukrainian officers have stated that when the struggle is over, they are going to rebuild the dam, which is able to refill the lake, which is able to bury all of the potential finds once more.

This space was plunged underwater in 1956, when the dam was accomplished as a part of a significant hydroelectric plant. Soviet archaeologists had surveyed it, although, as Mr. Synytsia stated, “no one paid any attention to Ukrainian identity back then.”

“So much was lost,” he added.

Khortytsia is a cradle of Ukrainian historical past. An island sitting in the midst of the Dnipro River, it has been inhabited by people for hundreds of years. It was stuffed with deer and rabbits and thick with bushes, the right pit cease for early vacationers heading down the Dnipro on their option to the Black Sea.

More not too long ago, say, 500 years in the past, it turned a fortress for the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks, a army neighborhood from the japanese European steppes that performed a distinguished function in constructing a Ukrainian state.

Many of probably the most attention-grabbing discoveries from the dam catastrophe have been discovered simply off the island’s rocky shores. Ukrainian archaeologists had been ecstatic a couple of weeks in the past to excavate a 20-foot-long oak boat half-buried within the sand and carved with mysterious symbols. It was at the least 5 centuries previous.

What Mr. Volkov reveals on his night forays is often extra modest; chips of historic pots, say, or crooked Cossack nails. However fragmented or rusty, they’re all attention-grabbing. Archaeologists like him assume deeply in regards to the passage of time and what occurs to issues because the centuries wash over them.

“We call it archaeological intelligence,” Mr. Volkov stated.

He spoke as he walked, head down, searching for extra treasures.

It was almost evening, and the sky was turning a wealthy darkish blue, the colour the reservoir was once earlier than it dried up into miles of cracked clay.

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn and Evelina Riabenko contributed reporting.