Climate change could harm ancient relics

PARIS - Mummies decaying in Siberia, pyramids vanishing under the sand in Sudan, Maya temples collapsing: Climate change risks destroying countless treasures from our shared past, archaeologists warn.

Melting ice can unlock ancient secrets from the ground, as with the discovery in 1991 of "Oetzi", a 5,300-year-old warrior whose body had been preserved through the millennia inside an Alpine glacier.

But as ice caps melt, deserts spread, ocean levels rise and hurricanes intensify - all forecast effects of man-made global warming - Henri-Paul Francfort of the CNRS research institute fears a heavy toll on world heritage.