Archaeologists in Romania have discovered 3,000-years-old well-preserved wood and ropes at Beclean in the country's northern Bistrita-Nasaud County. Valeriu Kavruk, curator of the Museum of the Eastern Carpathians based in Sfantu Gheorghe, central Romania, said that the objects, found in the bed of a vastly salted river near Baile Figa, have been well conserved due to the salted mud.
     The laboratory tests with Carbon 14 showed the objects dated from 1000 BCE, Kavruk said, adding that the Figa site represents "the most important archaeological discovery in the latest decades in South-Eastern Europe." The curator further explained that the findings, apart from being very old and very well preserved, also gave an idea about how salt was dug 3,000 years ago. The specialists concluded that the salt blocks were sliced not with hard tools as nowadays, but they were melted using water and then poured through the holes in the big block of salt.

Sources: Mathaba (6 December 2007), TopNews.int (9 December 2007)