Treasure hunters pose a problem for underwater archaeological heritage

Hipólito Sanchiz Alvarez de Toledo, 

Profesor Adjunto de Historia Antigua Universidad CEU-San Pablo, Universidad CEU San Pablo y Hipólito 

Sanchiz Alcaraz, Teacher Assistant, Colgate University
Wed, September 27, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

Noaa / Unsplash


There are ancient pirates and modern treasure hunters. They are separated by more than 200 years of history, differences in the available technology, and types of sponsorship that keep them afloat – the former sailing for a country and the latter protected by a company. Even so, they seem to have the same objective: the gold and silver of the Spanish Empire.

On October 5, 1804, the frigate “La Mercedes” came to the end of its journey at the bottom of the sea near Cape of St. Mary, at the south of Portugal. A surprise attack by the English wiped out the fleet, which was about to reach its destination. At the time, the two nations were at peace. However, that didn’t matter much to the British Royal Navy.

The tides and the fish were the silent guardians of the treasure, which remained sunk with the Mercedes for more than two centuries. That is, until its discovery was announced with great fanfare in 2007.

Since 1999, electric lights and robotic submarines had been periodically disturbing the peace of the seabed in secret. The company Odyssey was sweeping the bottom of the sea in search of the wreck, even though this was a potentially delicate archaeological site. It found its target: almost 600,000 silver and gold coins minted in Peru during the times of Charles IV.

Spanish silver and gold coins from the reign of Charles IV, extracted by Odyssey from the wreck of the frigate Mercedes and prepared for sale by said company as well. Hispalois/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The coins were transferred from Gibraltar to Atlanta, the city where Odyssey has its headquarters. However, the Spanish government initiated a lawsuit against the company. In 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Atlanta upheld the decision of a Florida judge, who ruled in favour of Spain. The coins were returned in 2012 under a legal decision that no longer allowed any type of appeal or reversal. However, investigators still discovered that the company had wrongfully hidden some objects recovered from the site in Gibraltar.

In the end, they were forced to return everything and pay a large part of the court costs.
Archaeology provides context

Archaeological treasure hunters pose a problem not only for underwater archaeological heritage but also for heritage pieces and sites located on land. Not so much because of the material value of the looted antiquities; in fact, contrary to popular belief, archaeologists are not interested in the objects found, but more so in their relationship with other objects and structures.

At an archaeological site, structures and objects are found in levels that take on the form of layers, and what matters is the relationship between objects and structures at any given level.

For example, the fact that Roman coins appear at a site in northern Europe may suggest that trade with the Roman Empire reached that point.

Because of all this, the context in which archaeological remains appear is absolutely key. The archaeologist needs to know exactly where an artefact has been found, at what archaeological level, and what artefacts and structures are on the same level. That is when the finding is really useful from a scientific point of view.
The price of underwater conservation

The main difference between an archaeological site on land and the site of a sunken ship is that, while a land site may contain material remains from various eras, a shipwreck is like a photograph of a moment in time. The materials that we find there are exclusively from the moment in which the ship sank, indicating styles, fashions, types of food, weapons, etc.

The other big difference is that studying an underwater site is prohibitively expensive.

To begin with, highly specialised labour is needed, along with diving licences, underwater equipment, one or more boats, and very expensive excavation equipment that can vacuum up mud or sand from the seabed. In land archaeology, shifts of 8 hours or more in length are normal – something unthinkable in underwater archaeology.

The worst is in the conservation of artefacts extracted from the seabed. If there is not a restorer prepared to act on the surface, these objects can very easily degrade in a matter of hours. This type of conservation is extremely expensive.

As an example, one of the best-preserved wrecks in the world at a museum on land is that of the famous warship the Vasa. It is a Swedish ship that foundered and sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage. This ship is one of the main attractions of the city of Stockholm. Nevertheless, the museum makes losses every year due to the cost of preserving the piece.

Odyssey is a company and, as such, it has to make a profit. And making a profit by doing a good job of underwater archaeology is impossible because of the high costs associated with it. Hence, many of these companies do what Odyssey did with the frigate La Mercedes: they loot the silver that the ship contained –approximately 600,000 silver coins– and completely ignore any other non-valuable object from the wreck.

If Odyssey had carried out proper archaeological work, even if the Spanish state had allowed Odyssey to sell the coins, they would have incurred financial losses.
That ship belongs to us

Who is the owner of submerged archaeological heritage sites? This is a difficult question to answer, and, in short, it depends. In theory, everything that falls into the jurisdictional waters of a given country or the nearby continental shelf belongs to that country, unless there is an international treaty involved.

This was the case of the Mercedes; it could be recovered by Spain because there was a treaty with the United States to respect ships’ maritime flags. In other words, if an American ship had sunk more than a hundred years ago in Spanish territorial waters, the remains would still belong to the United States – and vice versa.

Since 2001, we have had an international standard for respect towards submerged heritage, which is the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, signed by 20 countries, with more and more are being added. Hopefully, in the future it will be global in scope.

'Ritual text' from lost Indo-European language discovered on ancient clay tablet in Turkey

Tom Metcalfe
Wed, September 27, 2023


Words from a "lost" language spoken more than 3,000 years ago have been discovered on an ancient clay tablet unearthed in Turkey.

Archaeologists discovered the tablet earlier this year during excavations at Boğazköy-Hattuşa in north-central Turkey, the site of Hattusha, the Hittite capital from about 1600 B.C. until about 1200 B.C. and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Annual expeditions to the site led by Andreas Schachner, an archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute, have unearthed thousands of clay tablets written in cuneiform — perhaps the most ancient written script, created by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago.

The tablets are "mainly found in clusters connected to half a dozen buildings," sometimes described as archives or libraries, Schachner told Live Science. "But we find text all over the [site] that are moved around by erosion."

Most of the tablets unearthed at Boğazköy-Hattuşa are written in the language of the Hittites, but a few include words from other languages — apparently because the Hittites were interested in foreign religious rituals.

Related: What's the world's oldest civilization?

The words in the previously unknown language appear to be from such a ritual, which was recorded on a single clay tablet along with writing in Hittite explaining what it was.

"The introduction is in Hittite," Schachner said in an email. "It is clear that it is a ritual text."

Lost language

The clay tablet was one of several sent to Germany to be analyzed, where it was studied by Daniel Schwemer, a professor and chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Würzburg. From the Hittite introduction, he identified it as the language of Kalašma, a region on the north-western edge of the Hittite heartland near the modern Turkish city of Bolu.

The scholars don't know what it says yet, and they're not releasing any photographs of the tablet until it has been fully studied.

But they've determined that it belongs to the Anatolian group of the Indo-European family of languages, which the Hittite language also belonged to; other ancient languages in the region, including Akkadian, Hebrew and Aramaic, belong to the Semitic family of languages.


Schwemer said in a statement that "the Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages." Extracts of rituals in other foreign languages have also been found in the tablets from Boğazköy-Hattuşa, including in the Indo-European languages Luwian and Palaic and a non-Indo-European language known as Hattic.

Such ritual texts were written by Hittite scribes and reflected various Anatolian, Syrian and Mesopotamian traditions and linguistic milieus.

"The rituals provide valuable glimpses into the little-known linguistic landscapes of Late Bronze Age Anatolia, where not just Hittite was spoken," Schwemer said.

Hittite Empire

For centuries, the Hittites, who ruled over most of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and Syria, were among the most powerful empires in the ancient world. In 1274 B.C., the Hittites fought the Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptians for control of Canaan — what's now southern Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

The battle may be the earliest military action ever recorded. It seems to have been a defeat for the Hittites; although they kept control of the city of Kadesh, the Egyptians kept control of Canaan.

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Hattusha became the Hittite capital in about 1600 B.C.; and more than 100 years of archaeological excavations at the site have revealed a vast ancient city there.

But it was abandoned in about 1200 B.C. during the cataclysmic "Late Bronze Age collapse" that suddenly ended or damaged many ancient states in the eastern Mediterranean; the collapse has been ascribed to invasions by migrants called the "Sea Peoples", sudden climate changes, and disruptive new technologies like iron — but historians and archaeologists debate the causes.

Schachner said it wasn't possible to foresee if any other writings in the "lost" language would be found, or if extracts from still other ancient languages would be found in the tablets from Boğazköy-Hattuşa.

Previously unknown language found hidden in "cultic ritual text" of ancient tablets

Kerry Breen
Wed, September 27, 2023 

A new language has been discovered in a UNESCO World Heritage Site being excavated in northern Turkey, according to a news release from the University of Würzburg.

The area being excavated is Boğazköy-Hattusha, the former capital of the Hittite Empire. The Hittites are one of the world's oldest known civilizations, with the world's oldest known Indo-European language, and excavations at that site have been ongoing for more than 100 years, the university said. The excavations are directed by the German Archaeological Institute. Previously, archaeologists at the site have found "almost 30,000 clay tablets with cuneiform writing," according to the university's news release.

The tablets have helped researchers understand the civilization's history, society, economy, religious traditions and more, but this year's excavations at the site "yielded a surprise," the university said: Within a "cultic ritual text," written in Hititte, there is a "recitation in a hitherto unknown language."

"The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages," said Daniel Schwemer, chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the university, in the release. This means that the find isn't entirely unexpected. It appears to refer to a language from an area once called Kalašma, on the northwestern edge of the Hittite civilization, where the Turkish towns of Bolu and Gerede currently exist.

The language is "as yet largely incomprehensible," the news release said, and is being studied for more understanding.

This is the fourth such language found among the tablets: Previous researchers have found cuneiform texts with passages in Luwian, Palaic and Hattic languages. The first two languages are closely related to Hittite, the university said, while the third language differs. The new language was found where the Palaic language was spoken, but researchers believe it shares "more features" with Luwian. The connection between the languages will be studied by researchers.

The university said that these ritual texts were usually written by the scribes of Hittite rulers and reflect various Bronze Age traditions and languages. According to the University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, which keeps the Chicago Hittite Dictionary, a "comprehensive, bilingual Hittite-English dictionary," studying Hittite languages can help illuminate how Western civilization began.

"Despite what is often thought, modern Western civilization did not start with the Greeks," the institute said on its website. "The real cradle of our civilization stood in what is now the Middle East. Many literary and artistic themes and motifs can be traced back directly to that world. The Bible was embedded in ancient Near Eastern society, and the earliest forms of what we call modern science are found in Babylon. Anatolia is the natural bridge between those Eastern worlds and Graeco-Roman civilization and the Hittites and their later descendants in the same area served as intermediaries, handing down ancient Near Eastern culture to the West."

Mysterious box donated to museum turns out to contain ‘exceptional’ Neanderthal

 remains

ANOTHER AMAZING FIND FROM THE MUSEUM STORAGE ROOM

Brendan Rascius
Wed, September 27, 2023

Photo from Frontiers in Earth Science

A trove of Neanderthal bones was recently found inside a box donated to a museum in Spain, researchers said.

The ancient remains, concealed under a layer of clay-like material, sat untouched for decades, according to a study published Sept. 19 in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science.

Amateur collector Miguel Aznar excavated the bones near Barcelona in the 1970s. And in 1986, he donated an “exceptional collection” of more than 100 bone pieces, as well as pottery fragments and animal remains, to the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia.

Museum officials finally set about identifying the mysterious donation in 2020, researchers said.

Brushes and water were used to clean the remains, and acrylic resin was applied to help repair fractures. Despite having been coated in sediment, the bones appeared remarkably well-preserved.

After analyzing the collection, researchers concluded there were 53 Neanderthal bones inside. A molar, jaw fragment and bones from arms and feet were among those found.

“At least three individuals can be identified in the sample,” researchers said in the study. “The most complete one is defined by a complete left humerus (the largest bone in the upper arm).”

The three identified individuals appear to have been a woman, a child about 11 years old and another child about 7 years old.

The three Neanderthals roamed the Iberian Peninsula at least 42,000 years ago, researchers said.

“This assemblage is currently the most extensive Neanderthal collection from the northeastern Mediterranean Iberia, offering invaluable insights into the morphology and evolutionary trajectory of Late Pleistocene hominins,” researchers said.

Neanderthals were a subspecies of ancient humans who lived in Eurasia up until about 40,000 years ago, according to the Natural History Museum. They stood no more than 5.6 feet tall and ate plants, meat and shellfish.

Though Neanderthals went extinct long ago, their DNA lives on in modern humans, according to the museum. Some people share about 2% of their genetic makeup with Neanderthals.

Inside One of the World’s Largest and Most Advanced Underground Cities

Charlotte Collins
Wed, September 27, 2023 


Beneath the streets throughout parts of Turkey, a network of tunnels once housed thousands of residents seeking refuge from invaders and religious persecution. The country is known for its underground cities—particularly the expansive Derinkuyu, which could accommodate over 20,000 people. Though not yet fully excavated, current records indicate the 11-floor settlement measures around 2,000 square feet, with potentially over 5,000 square feet still unexplored. But as of this summer, archaeologists studying a site about 150 miles west of the ancient subterranean sanctuary believe they might have unearthed one of the largest and most advanced underground cities thus far. The network of subterranean rooms and corridors known as Sarayini covers approximately 215,000 square feet, according to Turkish news outlet Anadolu Agency.

Though it had long been subject of rumors in the area, excavation work to determine the true enormity of Sarayini began only two years ago and is still ongoing.

Photo: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency 

Below what is now the Sarayonu district of Turkey’s Konya metropolitan area, a labyrinth of 30 chambers is outfitted with chimneys, storage areas, cellars, and wells. The multilevel network reportedly dates back to the eighth century. Hasan Uğuz, a Konya Museums archaeologist who is directing the excavation, said that the teams working on site were not expecting the settlement to cover so much ground. In addition to its many rooms and halls, one particularly wide passageway is being described as a “main street.” The areas within the structure are likened to palaces for their comfortable nature and the high quality of life the network was able to support—far from the primitive caves one might imagine in discussions of subterranean dwellings. The refined character of the space earned it the name Sarayini, which means “palace” in Turkish.

The excavation work has unearthed a labyrinth of corridors and galleries as well as a number of amenities that give an idea of what life in the temporary retreat was like, including stoves, cellars, and storage areas.

Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesMore

“We did not think that it could spread over such a large area,” Uğuz told Anadolu Agency in August. “During the surface surveys, the old men living here said that they had visited this place when they were children and that it was a very large underground city.” Uğuz believes that this year’s excavation work has made the difference in determining how enormous the underground city truly was.

Among the items recovered during the excavation are animal bones and lamp stands. One particular room in the network was found to house a column drum and an object positioned in the manner of a tombstone.

Photo: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency 

The true depth of the underground city has not yet been determined. Ventilation systems and chimneys have been discovered in the structure, indicating a relatively high quality of life for the residents seeking temporary refuge in Sarayini.

Photo: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesMore

Excavation work at Sarayini has been in process for the past two years. Many of the ancient underground cities unearthed in Turkey have only been discovered in recent years, and most have not been fully explored. Preliminary studies have indicated that a subterranean complex found in Turkey’s Neveshir region may be larger than both Derinkuyu and Sarayini, though archaeologists don’t yet have a complete picture of the site. With Sarayini’s neighboring underground cities between three and seven miles away, research as to whether the complexes may be connected is ongoing.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

4,400-year-old tomb — with a preserved mummy inside — unearthed in Egypt. Again

Moira Ritter
Thu, September 28, 2023 

Screengrab from Facebook

Nearly 160 years ago, Auguste Mariette was exploring the Western Desert in Egypt when he came across a partially uncovered mastaba — or massive tomb — belonging to an ancient official in the sand.

At the time, Mariette successfully excavated an intricately decorated false door and supportive beam, but before he could make anymore progress, the mastaba was lost to the desert’s sand. Since then, the artifacts have been kept at The British Museum, and researchers have learned the tomb belonged to Ptahshepses — who is believed to be the first non-royal in Eyptian history who married a royal.

Now, Czech archaeologists have rediscovered Ptahshepses’s tomb after years of searching, according to a Sept. 25 Facebook post from the Czech Institute of Egyptology at Charles University in Prague.

“The tomb of a man who changed the course of Egyptian history has thus been rediscovered, representing one of the expedition’s greatest recent discoveries,” Miroslav Barta, head of research, said in the post. “The research is still ongoing, and further discoveries will likely be made to shed new light on his family and times.”

Archaeologists said the tomb, which dates to about the end of the 25th century B.C., is about 138 feet long, 72 feet wide and 13 feet tall. Inside, they discovered a well-preserved chapel, painted decorations, two rooms for statues and a long corridor.

There was also a burial chamber inside the mastaba, according to researchers. Although the chamber was looted during ancient times, it still contained parts of the original burial, including pottery, remains of offerings and mummified fish.

Experts also discovered Ptahshepses’s sarcophagus, which still held his complete mummy lying on his back. Analysis of the mummy revealed the official lived to be 65 years old, much older than expected during that time period.

The mastaba was discovered between Abusir and Saqqara, pyramid fields south of Cairo.

1,400-year-old tomb of emperor in China reveals evidence of royal power struggle among brothers and a warlord

Tom Metcalfe
Wed, September 27, 2023 

An unearthed tomb on the outskirts of the city of Xianyang in Shaanxi province.


The 1,400-year-old tomb of a Chinese emperor confirms a political power struggle between royal brothers and a warlord that, until now, was known only from historical records.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported last week that archaeologists had unearthed the tomb near the city of Xianyang in Shaanxi province, about 560 miles (900 kilometers) southwest of Beijing.

The report said the tomb holds the remains of Emperor Xiaomin — also known by his personal name, Yuwen Jue — who is regarded as the founder of the Northern Zhou dynasty in 557. But historians say Jue was deposed and executed after ruling for only a few months and that he wasn't proclaimed emperor until decades later.

The newfound tomb near Xianyang is inscribed with an epitaph, written in characters painted with cinnabar, a red mineral form of mercuric sulfide. It describes Jue as "Duke of Lueyang," which was his official rank at the time of his death, and not as emperor.

Related: 3,000-year-old gold funeral mask unearthed in noble's tomb in China

Imperial tomb

According to the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology, which is working on the excavations, the tomb was found in an area northwest of Xianyang that has many high-status tombs from that time.

A tomb belonging to Jue's younger brother was previously found nearby, while the tomb of yet another brother, Yuwen Yong — Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou — is about 5 miles (8 km) to the east.

The newfound tomb is a single earthen chamber about 184 feet (56 meters) long and about 33 feet (10 m) deep.

At some point, the tomb was disturbed by grave robbers, but the archaeologists unearthed 146 artifacts buried there as grave goods, including terra-cotta figurines and pottery, according to Xinhua.

Power struggle

Experts say the inscription on the tomb provides the first physical evidence of the political struggle that took place during the founding of the Northern Zhou dynasty, which had been described only in historical writings.

At that time, China was fractured into several kingdoms plagued by civil wars and political chaos — a period historians call the time of the Northern and Southern dynasties, between 420 and 589.

Historian Albert Dien, a professor emeritus of Chinese at Stanford University who was not involved with the tomb's discovery, told Live Science that Jue had been installed on the imperial throne by his cousin and guardian, the warlord Yuwen Hu.

Jue was the son of Yuwen Tai, a powerful general of the Western Wei dynasty who died in 556, and with Hu's support, Jue ascended the throne in 557.

But Jue rebelled against control by Hu, so Hu had him deposed and executed a few months later, replacing him with another brother, Yuwen Yu — Emperor Ming.

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Hu eventually poisoned Yu, and then controlled the Northern Zhou dynasty through puppet rulers until he was assassinated in 572 by a clique loyal to yet another brother, Yuwen Yong, who had become Emperor Wu.

Jue was proclaimed the first emperor of the Northern Zhao dynasty only after Yong dispatched Hu, roughly 37 years after Jue's death, Dien said. As a result, the inscription on the newfound tomb near Xianyang shows Jue had been buried as a duke when he died, and not as an emperor.

2,300-year-old tomb found in Israel may contain remains of Greek courtesan

Lianne Kolirin, CNN
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered what they believe to be the remains of an Ancient Greek courtesan.

The cremated remains of a young woman were found in a burial cave alongside a perfectly preserved bronze box mirror on a rocky slope close to Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, not far from Jerusalem.

The tomb is believed to date back to some time between the late 4th century and early 3rd century BCE, according to a joint study carried out by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

Guy Stiebel, from the department of archeology and the Ancient Near East at Tel Aviv University, told CNN in a phone interview that the find is “very significant.”

The high-quality mirror was found to be perfectly preserved. - Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority

“It’s almost like bringing back to life a woman who passed away 2,300 years ago,” he said of the research, which he compared to a “jigsaw puzzle or riddle.”


He and his team believe this could be the first discovery of the remains of a hetaira, as courtesans were known in Ancient Greece.

“If we are correct with our interpretation, it appears that this burial points to the very unique circumstances of what we call a hetaira, a Greek lady who accompanied one of the Hellenistic government officials, or more likely a high general,” he said.

In the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean, the Hellenistic age refers to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and the conquest of Egypt by Rome in 30 BCE. Stiebel told CNN that he and his team believe the woman would have been among the first Greeks to arrive in the region.

Liat Oz, the director of the excavation on behalf of the IAA, described the mirror found in the tomb alongside the remains.

“This is only the second mirror of this type that has been discovered to date in Israel, and in total, only 63 mirrors of this type are known around the Hellenistic world,” she said in a news release about the discovery.

Researchers say the mirror is incredibly rare, with just 63 discovered in the Hellenistic world. - Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority

“The quality of the production of the mirror is so high that it was preserved in excellent condition, and it looked as if it was made yesterday.”

Folding box mirrors such as this were documented in tombs and temples in the Greco-Hellenistic world, the researchers noted. They were usually decorated with engravings or reliefs of idealized female figures or goddesses.

Stiebel said a woman of high status might have received such a mirror as part of a dowry, but this was unlikely to have been the case in this instance as married women rarely left their homes in Greece.

Alternatively, he said, she might have been a courtesan, as they often received gifts from men. Likening the hetairai to Japanese geishas, Stiebel explained that the women were regarded as “muses.”

He said: “Women in society were breaking glass ceilings in very strict and male-oriented Greek society and we do know that they served not only as sexual escorts, but were similar to geishas and provided an element of culture. For that they were given gifts and part of the economy of gifts in Ancient Greece had to do with mirrors.”

The fact the remains were cremated also hinted at the woman’s origins, Stiebel said.

“Cremation is alien to this country and the religion,” he said, explaining that cremation is not only forbidden in Judaism but would not have been practiced by the Persian empire either, which occupied the region at that time.

“The tomb was found in the middle of nowhere, not near any village or farm or settlement, which suggests that she would have been connected with one of the military campaigns and dated to the time of Alexandra the Great or slightly later.

“We are suggesting that maybe she was with one of the generals.”

Stiebel went on to explain the significance of four iron nails found with the mirror and remains.

“Nails were used to protect the deceased and also to protect the living people from the dead. The bodies were literally nailed down to ensure they will not come back to the world of the living,” he said.

Stiebel told CNN that the team are continuing with further research in order to “zoom in” on the finer details of the mirror.

He said: “We hope to shed more light on the origin of the production of the art and maybe shed more light on the history of the owner of the mirror, the general who bought it or where she came from.”

The research will be presented for the first time at an Israeli archaeology conference next month.

Plans for Poland's first nuclear power plant move ahead as US and Polish officials sign an agreement

AP Finance
Updated Wed, September 27, 2023 

 Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki talks to journalists as he arrives for the third EU-CELAC summit in Brussels, Belgium, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Polish and U.S. officials signed an agreement Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023 in Warsaw for the construction of Poland's first nuclear power plant, part of an effort by the Central European nation to move away from polluting fossil fuels. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish and U.S. officials signed an agreement Wednesday in Warsaw to move forward with the construction of Poland's first nuclear power plant as part of an effort by the Central European nation to move away from polluting fossil fuels.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the deal to build the plant at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site in the Pomerania region near the Baltic Sea the beginning of a new chapter for Poland, and described nuclear energy as a stable and clean energy source.

“The only clean, stable energy source that is technologically proven and verified in terms of safety is nuclear energy, which is having its big day today,” he said at the ceremony.

Morawiecki's government had announced last year that it had chosen the U.S. as its partner for the project.

A consortium made up of Westinghouse and Bechtel signed the agreement with the Polish state-owned utility overseeing the nuclear program, Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ).

The planned site is about 280 kilometers (175 miles) from the border with Germany, which shut its last remaining nuclear reactors in April. Last year, the four German states closest to Poland said they were opposed to the Polish plan.

Many environmentalists traditionally oppose nuclear energy, and in Poland some argue that the initial cost is so high and that it takes so long to develop that it makes more sense to invest in renewable energies. Still, opposition in Poland to the plan has not been high.

Even the Greens party is divided on the matter. That is a reflection of how fears of climate change have persuaded some environmentalists around the world to embrace nuclear power as a solution, because it doesn't involve the burning of fossil fuels.

Poland is planning to spend $40 billion to build two nuclear power plants with three reactors each, the last one to be launched in 2043. The deal with the U.S. is for the first three reactors of the Pomerania plant, which officials say should start producing electricity in 2033.

Poland has also signed agreements with South Korea for the construction of a second nuclear power plant as it moves forward with its nuclear energy plans.

Poland has planned for decades to build nuclear power plants to replace its aging coal-fired plants in a country with some of the worst air pollution in Europe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its use of energy to put economic and political pressure on European nations added urgency to Poland’s search for alternative energy sources.

PINK HYDROGEN

Nuclear-hydrogen 'marriage' has potential, US energy loans chief says

A MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL

Timothy Gardner
Thu, September 28, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: A flock of goats gather under a set of power lines above Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant at Avila ...

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nuclear power plants using low-cost electricity to make hydrogen from water, an emerging fuel, could play a role in the energy transition, the head of a U.S. office that distributes billions of dollars in loans for new energy technologies said on Thursday.

U.S. nuclear reactors tend to operate full-time because shutting them is expensive and hard on the plants. Some have stored the excess cheap power by using it to pump water supplies to high elevations and generating hydropower when it is released downhill.

This process, called pumped hydro, could be replaced by using the cheap nuclear power to run electrolyzers, machines that separate hydrogen from water. The hydrogen could then be used to fuel things like cement plants or, eventually, hydrogen-burning vehicles to cut carbon emissions and curb climate change.

"The whole concept of nuclear and hydrogen is one that makes a lot of intellectual sense," Jigar Shah, the director of the Loan Programs Office (LPO) of the U.S. Department of Energy, told Reuters.

The two potentially have a "very interesting marriage," Shah said in an interview ahead of the Reuters Events Hydrogen North America conference in Houston from Oct. 11-12.

Since December 2001, the LPO has approved about $1.5 billion for two hydrogen projects. Shah said there are about $30 billion worth of U.S. hydrogen projects in the advanced stage that could reach a final investment decision later next year. In addition, there are about $5 billion to $8 billion in hydrogen projects in the pipeline at LPO, he added.

Critics of nuclear power say that it is too expensive to make a big difference on climate and that even so-called advanced nuclear power projects could create toxic waste that has to be dealt with.

Shah did not specify what kind of projects joining nuclear and hydrogen LPO might consider. But he said most nuclear power plant owners "are very excited about adding hydrogen to their repertoire" and that nuclear power pilot projects being developed in the marketplace could be conjoined with hydrogen.

"We hope that the data that comes from those pilot projects gives them the confidence to hit the final investment decisions on a much larger rollout," for hydrogen and nuclear, Shah said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Rami Ayyub)

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