Swiss Sports Stone Stolen … Again

UNSPUNNEN, Switzerland – In a world often torn by violent acts in the name of politics, not even the Swiss are immune. This summer, someone swiped a 176-lbs. rock.
Not just any old boulder, though. The granite in question is the Unspunnenstein, noted by Reuters News Service as an emblem of Swiss nationality that would’ve been the centerpiece of a folk celebration last month.
People wouldn’t look at the rock as some kind of historical relic, though. They planned on throwing it.
Reuters reported that the stone would be used in a hurling competition during the Unspunnenfest, a folk-culture event held only every decade, give or take a year or two here and there. However, political separatists reportedly absconded with the stone from its display area at the Victoria Jungfrau Grand Hotel and Spa in Interlaken, Switzerland, in August. And, it’s not the first time the throwing stone disappeared in a political dispute.
In 1984, the historic piece of Aare granite disappeared when four members of a French-speaking separatist youth group, Béliers, took it from a museum. The group held the rock as part of a protest over the omission of some areas when creating a new French-speaking canton, Jura, in 1979.
After negotiations with the youth group, the Unspunnenstein was disguised as a package of confectionary – a rather large one – and delivered to the wife of the Swiss ambassador to Germany in 2001. During its captivity, the stone received several carvings, including the stars symbol of the European Union.
The stone had a convoluted history before becoming a political hot potato. The first stone, used at the initial Unspunnenfest in 1805, is lost to history. A second stone became the official Unspunnenstein, only to disappear after the centennial games in 1905 and not turn up again until 1946. That stone went back into service for a variety of festivals, although an Interlaken postman took possession of it in 1968 before surrendering it for that year’s Unspunnenfest.
The latest political purloining, if aimed at stopping the festival, appears to be in vain. Festival organizers designated a 184-lbs.stone first used at the 1986 Federal Swiss Wrestling & Cowherd Festival as the new Unspunnenstein.
The whole drama of the stolen stone became moot, however, when heavy rains and flooding led to the cancellation of the festival early last month. The new Unspunnenstein will be rolled out at a rescheduled event next September.