Archaeologists at Vienna's Natural History Museum have uncovered a wooden staircase in a Bronze Age salt mine at Hallstatt, in northern Austria, dating to the 13th century BC. The structure is believed to be the oldest of its kind found anywhere in Europe, and possibly in the world.
The staircase, roughly one metre wide and constructed from pine and spruce, was found about 100 metres below the surface. Salt's natural suppression of wood-decomposing microorganisms left the structure in exceptional condition after three millennia underground.
Excavation director Hans Reschreiter said the team has exposed only about seven metres of the structure so far, though it extends in both directions. The previous European record-holder dated to the fifth century BC, placing this discovery roughly 800 years earlier.
The mine sits about 200 metres from a necropolis associated with the Hallstatt Civilisation, one of the more significant Iron Age cultures in central Europe, which flourished around 700 BC.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.