Giant's Violin Restored in Bay Head

Dr. Hugh Mungus of Stockton University has spent the last six months working on the restoration of a unique archeological find. Last year a fishing boat reported seeing an ice berg off the coast of Point Pleasant. When the Coast Guard investigated, they realized that there was something frozen inside. They towed it to a dock in Bay Head and contacted Dr. Mungus. 

"What I saw inside the ice was truly amazing," said Dr. Mungus. "It was a huge violin, or viola that seemed to be completely intact. I immediately assumed that it must be an artifact that once belonged to a Greenland Giant."

The warming of northern climates has resulted in some unexpected discoveries as ice melts. One of the most well known and exciting is the Greenland Giants. In 2009, archeologists found that a race of giants, over 30 feet tall, had once lived in a settlement in Greenland. Scientists estimated that at its peak, there were as many as 2,000 giant humans living in Greenland in a European style city. Sadly, evidence shows that they completely died out by the year 1800 and their culture was lost beneath ice. 

"I had the good fortune of working on the Greenland archeological expedition," said Dr. Mungus. "We found that they lived a simple lifestyle, and subsisted primarily through fishing. Their clothing, dwelling and furnishings seemed to be influenced by European styles, though much, much larger, of course. The discovery of this violin is important because it shows that they also enjoyed some European cultural influences."

The giant violin has been stored in a temporary structure for the past half year while Dr. Mungus and his team have been restoring it. They found the instrument to be almost perfectly preserved by the ice and took great pains to thaw it without damaging it. Dr. Mungus estimates that the violin was made sometime in the 17th century, at the height of the Greenland Giants' society.

Now that restoration is complete, Dr. Hugh Mungus and his associates are working on creating a full size bow for the instrument. "When I showed the violin to some colleagues in the music department, they were convinced that it could be played. With their help, we set about constructing an enormous bow and a specialized scaffold that will allow six music students to work together and play the violin. Two will push on the strings, while four manipulate the bow. It should be amazing to hear the music of such a unique instrument."

Dr. Mungus will make the violin available for display locally and will even have demonstrations of the instrument being played. It will then be moved to South Street Seaport in New York City so more people can see the remarkable discovery. Finally, the violin will be moved to Nuke, the capitol of Greenland, where other artifacts of the Giants are already on display.

Dr. Mungus hopes the violin will go on display in Bay Head sometime in November. Until then, if you hear some really loud violin music in the area, you know where it's coming from.