Norway youth 'improves' 5,000-year-old skier carving

A stone-age rock carving of a figure on skis - one of Norway’s most famous historical sites — has been vandalised in what a local politician has described as “a national tragedy”.

A youth visiting the 5,000-year-old carving used a sharp object to scratch along the lines of the carving, apparently intending to make then clearer for other visitors.

“It’s a tragedy, because it’s one of the most famous Norwegian historical sites,” Bård Anders Langø, the mayor of the nearby Alstahaug Municipality, told The Local. “It is one of the most internationally known symbols of Norway.”

The carving, on the island of Tro off Nordland, northern Norway, provides amongst the earliest evidence of skiing by stone age man. It inspired the symbol used for the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994.
[link to www.thelocal.no]