Hunger stones: The history behind 'if you see me, weep'

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The famous Decin hunger stone, with its cryptic inscription, dates back to 1904Image: Ondrej Hajek/CTK/dpa/picture allianceAdvertisement

As Europe's rivers recede during periods of drought, long-hidden traces of the past have resurfaced.

Alongside Nazi-era shipwrecks, unexploded World War II bombs and prehistoric mammoth remains, some rivers reveal history literally written in stone.

One such inscription, in German, reads: "Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine" — "If you see me, weep."

These words are etched on a hunger stone in the Elbe River near Decin in Czechia, close to the German border.

The 2026 drought has revealed historical artifacts lying under Europe's rivers, like this century-old shipwreck in CroatiaImage: David Jerkovic/Pixsell/IMAGO

Why 'hunger'?

Hunger stones, or "Hungersteine" in German, are riverbed boulders that usually stay underwater and hidden, but become exposed when river levels drop significantly during prolonged droughts.

Unlike a high-water mark, which records the highest water level, the hunger stone marks the lowest.

For centuries, communities carved dates or inscriptions onto these stones whenever the waters of rivers like the Elbe, Danube or Rhine receded dramatically. Some hunger stones bear lists of years, including 1616, 1746 and 1842.

The 2026 drought has seen water levels in the Danube river reach new lowsImage: Cristian Cristel/Xinhua/IMAGO

In a 2019 study "Extreme Droughts and Human Responses to Them: The Czech Lands in the Pre-Instrumental Period," Czech historian and climatologist Rudolf Brazdil and his colleagues drew on chronicles, administrative records and other documentary sources to examine how drought-affected communities lived long before systematic weather measurements.

For people living along rivers such as the Elbe, low water created a host of problems. Barges carrying timber, grain and other goods struggled to navigate shallow channels, disrupting trade along one of Central Europe's vital transport routes. In severe cases, shipping had to be restricted or halted altogether.

And drought also meant crop failure, rising prices — and hunger.

Hunger stones like this one didn't just commemorate years of drought; they also attempted to mark low water levelsImage: Arno Burgi/dpa/picture alliance

More than just drought memorials

While hunger stones were often treated as symbolic reminders of drought, they've proven to be more than that.

A 2020 study published in the journal Climate of the Past found that many of the dates and markings on Elbe hunger stones closely matched documented periods of exceptionally low water. The researchers concluded that many of the inscriptions were intended to record how low the river had fallen, rather than merely commemorate drought years.

The study also documented drought year markings on the Decin stone dating back to at least the 16th century, underscoring that the famous inscription "If you see me, weep" of 1904 represents only one chapter in the hunger stone's much longer history.

Hunger stones, like this one in Techlovice, often bear years and water level marksImage: Wikipedia

A doomsaying stone?

Yet, its fame lies mainly in its seemingly foreboding message. Even its sighting during the more recent European droughts of 2020 and 2022 inspired media coverage, describing its message as "chilling", "grim" or a "harbinger of hard times."

In his 2019 study "Die Botschaft der Hungersteine" (or "The Message of the Hunger Stones"), Bernd Gross drew on newspaper reports, postcards and local historical records to reconstruct the history of the Decin hunger stone and noted that its inscription may have been inspired by an older one.

Gross cited newspaper reports from the 1890s that described a hunger stone near Techlovice, upstream from Decin, that reportedly bore German inscriptions such as: "We cried — We cry — And you will cry."

The man most often associated with the Decin stone's inscription is F. Mayer, a local innkeeper and boatman and member of the Elbe shipping community.

According to Gross, Mayer had the now-famous phrase carved onto the stone during the drought of 1904, dated July 18, along with his name.

This 1904 photo featured the 'celebrity' Decin hunger stone, seen by thousands of visitorsImage: Wikipedia/Public Domain

A celebrity of its time

At the time, newspapers referred to it as the Bodenbach or Tetschen hunger stone, after the neighboring towns that today form part of Decin. They reported on the exposed stone and its message, while contemporary accounts described thousands of visitors who went to see it.

Postcards featuring the hunger stone also circulated widely, spreading awareness of the site far beyond the...