The Mississippi River continues to unveil more relics from the past.
While walking along the shoreline of the river on Saturday, relic collector Riley Bryant found Civil War-era bullets and a union U.S. cartridge box plate, according to aninterview he gave ABC News. He was walking under the I-55 bridge in Memphis when he made the historical discovery. (In avideoposted on social media, Bryant described his finds as bullets and a belt buckle).
The historian, 63, also said Bryant’s discovery was pretty rare. “They are in exceptional condition. It’s hard to find a box plate that’s that undamaged,” Shaner told the outlet. “I couldn’t believe it was sticking up in the rocks like that.”
Scott Olson/Getty
“To find it there in such good condition just lying there, it almost gave me a heart attack,” Bryant, 21, said in the interview.
Last week, two discoveries were uncovered as drought conditions continued to cause water levels to drop.
“Because these water levels are so low that we knew it was only a short matter of time before human remains were found,” Foster told the news station.
According toCNN, the county’s medical examiner said the remains include a lower jawbone, rib bones and other unidentified bone fragments. The outlet said investigators plan to take DNA samples from the bones to compare to cases involving missing persons.
Drought In Mississippi River Basin.Scott Olson/Getty
Outside of Foster’s disturbing discovery, a ferry thought to have sunk in the river sometime during the late 1800s to early 1900s has emerged in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to theAssociated Press.
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Louisiana state archeologist Chip McGimsey believes the boat may be the wreck of the Brookhill Ferry, which carried passengers and horse carriages across the river and sank during a storm in 1915.
“Eventually the river will come back up and (the ship) will go back underwater,” McGimsey told the AP. “That’s part of the reason for making the big effort to document it this time — cause she may not be there the next time.”
source: people.com
