{"id":813537,"date":"2026-08-14T16:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813537\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:24:13","slug":"spain-removes-remains-of-11th-century-kings-from-monastery-as-europes-wildfires-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813537\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain removes remains of 11th century kings from monastery as Europe\u2019s wildfires spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spanish authorities on Thursday removed the remains of three kings who ruled the Arag\u00f3n region in the 11th \u200bcentury from a monastery threatened by a wildfire.<\/a><\/p>\n

Their remains \u200cwere taken to the provincial museum of Huesca, located 50 miles south of the monastery, for their protection until conditions improve, said the \u200bnortheastern region\u2019s vice-president Mar Vaquero.<\/p>\n

After the wildfire that had \u200bbeen raging since Monday began moving toward the 10th \u2060century San Juan de la Pe\u00f1a monastery late on Thursday, \u200bconcern that it could be engulfed by flames prompted authorities to \u200blaunch a rescue operation, Vaquero told reporters.<\/p>\n

An emergency military unit team managed to enter the monastery, located in a mountain range, and take ceremonial \u200bclothing belonging to an 18th-century count buried there, before \u200bthe proximity of the flames forced them to flee.<\/p>\n

The team returned a second \u200ctime, \u2060accompanied by police officers and heritage officials, and removed the remains of the first three kings of Arag\u00f3n \u2014 who ruled between 1035 and 1104 \u2014 from a pantheon within the monastery, as \u200bwell as some \u200bhistorical paintings.<\/p>\n

The wildfire had intensified earlier on Thursday, fuelled by higher temperatures \u200band strong winds. It has burned more than \u200b3.5 square miles and forced the evacuation of 16 towns, although the monastery remained unharmed on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Evacuations as wildfires spread<\/p>\n

As large parts of Europe battle fires after a long stretch of hot and dry conditions, <\/a>a raging wildfire in the province of Huelva, southern Spain, triggered an operation to evacuate around \u200b700 people on Thursday.<\/p>\n

More than 2,000 people evacuated \u200bthe village of Gey in western Germany on Friday after a \u200cwildfire near the Belgian border, while France evacuated 525 people from the village of Luglon in its southwestern Landes region.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Croatia and Greece both evacuated tourists from resorts as fires spread. Flames enveloped settlements and trees around Omis, a scenic town on Croatia\u2019s prized Dalmatian coast surrounded by trees and \u2060rocky hills, officials said, injuring 40 and forcing 1,200 to \u200bevacuate.<\/p>\n

More than 300 people were evacuated by boat from Siviri in northern Greece, south of the country\u2019s second city, Thessaloniki.<\/p>\n

People wearing face masks, some clutching children or pets, boarded dinghies and boats in the seaside town as a wildfire ate through the nearby forest and columns of smoke turned the cloudless sky a dark grey.<\/p>\n

Nero\u2019s Bridge emerges<\/p>\n

The remains of an ancient bridge have emerged in Rome\u2019s Tiber River, near St. Peter\u2019s Basilica, after weeks with virtually no rain caused water levels to plunge.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ItalyThe ruins of the ancient Nero’s bridge emerge from the riverbed of the Tiber in Rome on Thursday.Gregorio Borgia \/ AP<\/p>\n

The bridge \u2014 known as Nero\u2019s Bridge, named for the former Roman emperor \u2014 once connected Rome\u2019s city center with the Tiber\u2019s right bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cNero is the most famous person linked to this area, because precisely in Nero\u2019s circus, where the Vatican is now located, the Apostle Peter was martyred,\u201d said Antonella Bonini, an archaeologist at Rome\u2019s cultural heritage superintendency.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, scholars consider the bridge to be older (than Nero\u2019s era) \u2014 built by Caligula, Nero\u2019s uncle,\u201d she said, adding that it existed as early as 39 AD.<\/p>\n

The Tiber\u2019s flow has fallen below 80 cubic meters (2,825 cubic feet) per second, about half the historic average for the month of July, according to Giovanni Giganti, coordinator of the Rome civil protection service\u2019s center for water management.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are facing a major water crisis. And it is a crisis that is also due to the fact that this winter we did have quite abundant rainfall, but then the dry periods … were quite long,\u201d Giganti said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spanish authorities on Thursday removed the remains of three kings who ruled the Arag\u00f3n region in the 11th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-813537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}