James H. Barrett, NTNU University Museum
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The church ruins of an Old Norse settlement in eastern Greenland. Greenland is essentially the only source of walrus products on the Western European market.
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Nationalgeographic.co.id—In 2007, archaeologists had been carrying out excavations on Spaska Street in Kyiv, Ukraine, but not much was found. But there is one discovery that was later discovered, it was quite spectacular because it was found in Ukraine, namely ivory walrus.
To note, two previous archaeological surveys have been conducted there, with scanty results. But now a new building will be erected, and the site must first be examined by archaeologists because the area is historic.
Natalia Khamaiko, an archaeologist at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences who led the research, said excavations there had so far only been considered routine inspections. “No one dared to believe that we would make such a great archaeological find out of all that we have done,” Khamaiko said as reported by eurekalert.
Until then, archaeologists found nine unexplained bone fragments of varying sizes. One large part of the bone stood out in particular. Archaeologists could not imagine what animal it was.
Therefore, three of the bone fragments were sent to zoo archaeologist Oleg Zhuravlyov. He compared the bones to material at the Natural History Museum and came back with an answer: they came from the snouts of walruses, which are marine mammals that are widely distributed in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic Seas in the Northern Hemisphere.
Valery Krymchak
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Researchers were surprised to find walrus tusk in Kyiv.
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“This was a complete surprise for us. We had never heard of a similar discovery in Kyiv,” Khamaiko said. The bone fragment turned out to be more shocking than Khamaiko could have imagined.
“Ivory Walrus is a very popular raw material in Europe in Medieval. It was used to make some of the most beautiful objects in church art, but gradually it was also used for everyday objects such as game pieces and knife handles,” said James Barrett, an archaeologist and professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) University Museum. Museum.
For a long time, scientists believed that these walrus tusks came from several different regions of the Arctic. However, in 2019, Barrett and four other researchers conducted a study that revealed that Greenland is basically the only source of walrus products on the Western European market.
However, walrus tusks from Eastern European finds are thought to have come from elsewhere. “Sources written in Arabic from the Middle Ages say that the so-called “fish teeth”—meaning walrus teeth. The tusks were traded all over the world. Ukraine and Russia until Islamic world and is used to make a wide variety of objects, including sword shafts.
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