Norway: 500-year-old candle box, other artefacts found perfectly preserved in glaciers

A team of archaeologists at the Glacier Archaeology Program in Innlandet have discovered a candle box and other artifacts perfectly preserved in the Lendbreen glacier in Norway’s Breheimen National Park. Scientists scoured the edges of the melting glacier when they discovered a wooden box from the Lendbreen ice with the lid still on. “It is one of the most awesome finds we have discovered from the melting ice. We wondered how old it was and what kind of wood had been used to make it. Not least did we wonder what was inside,” the team announced on its official Facebook page. The well-preserved candle box is made in pine and is radiocarbon-dated to AD 1475-1635, approximately 400-500 years old. The content of the box was analyzed at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo.

“We were in for a big surprise - the content is beeswax,” wrote the team, expressing wonder. “What we are seeing inside the box is very likely the remains of a beeswax candle,” it said.

Candle boxes are still used in present-day

According to the archaeologists, such candle boxes are still used in present-day Norway and are used to transporting candles between the main farms and the summer farms. The discovery was made among the several glaciated mountain passes in the Alps. Extremely well preserved and rare artifacts have emerged from melting glaciers and ice patches in North America, Alps, and Scandinavia.  The scientists have been surveying at 1900 m, along the upper edge of the Lendbreen ice patch since August 4th, 2011, known as the “year of the big melt.”

“In the 1970s and 1980s, several artifacts were reported to the archaeological authorities from this site, including a completely preserved Viking Age spear. In the previous days of the survey, we had found the usual arrows and scaring sticks, which showed that reindeer had been hunted here in the Iron Age. We started finding bits of textile, leather, and other artifacts that are not common on hunting sites,” Secrets Of The Ice the archaeology project wrote in a news release. 

The team also discovered ancient horse dung found in the depression at the top of the Lendbreen ice patch. The Lendbreen ice patch has continued to melt in the years to follow and more artifacts emerged from the ice. Archaeologists have undertaken fieldwork on the site from 2011 to 2015 and again in 2018 and 2019, each time collecting many finds.