When context is key: “Hunger stones” go viral, but news first broke in 2018

Stories have been circling around the Internet this past week about the re-emergence in certain Czech and German rivers of so-called hunger stones, which are rocks embedded in the water to mark the water level and warn future generations of the likely famine and hardship to come. The coverage has been fueled by an August 11 message on a stone that said "If you see me, weep"

There is a fascinating history of hunger stones. The water levels in Europe are so low that the stones could come back to life. A series of news stories from last year, when the re-emergence of the hunger stones in the midst of that year's extreme dry spell in Europe made headlines, are being covered by August 11.

An illustrative example of why context is so important in the digital age is provided by this case of misinformation.

The recent droughts in Europe once again made visible the "Hunger Stones" in some Czech and German rivers. These stones were used to mark desperately low river levels that would forecast famines.

This one, in the Elbe river, is from 1616 and says: "If you see me, cry" pic.twitter.com/uJTapWXN5y

One of the oldest landmarks in the region is located on the Elbe River in Dn. The earliest legible date is 1616, but older carvings marking the droughts of 1417 and 1473 were destroyed by anchoring ships. The stone has been used to carve many drought years, including 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1812, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, and 1893. The stone can be seen on 126 days out of the year thanks to the construction of a dam on the Elbe.

The inscription "nepla holka, nenakej, kdy je sucho, pole stkej" was added in 1939. When this stone goes under, life will become more colorful again.

The history of the Czech region's dry spell from 1090 to 2012 was examined in a paper in which hunger stones were used as an "evidence" of past dry spells. It was possible to cross the River Vltava in 1393 because of the severe dry spell.

One of the earliest grounded lightning rods was built by a priest named Prokop Divi. It was made of several tin boxes and hundreds of metal spikes and was supposed to drive off storms.

In the fall of 1759, local villagers demanded that Divi remove it because they thought it was the cause of the summer's dry spell. The priests enemiesriled up the crowd and the villagers broke the chains holding the instrument down. Their win was brief. The villagers asked him to re- install his weather instrument because there were so many storms that year. The authors said his reply was not positive.

The Elbe plummeted to its lowest level in more than half a century when Central Europe was besieged by a second year of dry weather. The story was covered by a number of outlets.

The story is back in the news. Kim LaCapria thinks it started with an August 10 post on the r/todayilearned that linked to a Wikipedia entry on hunger stones. The discovery of another set of human remains was made two days before that because of the low water levels in Lake Mead. They created the perfect conditions to reignite interest in the hunger stones, sparking a new flurry of news stories.