3,500-year-old bronze dagger found in Polish forest

A rare Bronze Age dagger has been discovered in a forest near Krasnystaw in southeastern Poland. It is in good condition, with no evidence of wear on the edges. It was cast in a lenticular shape with a rib down the center. The semi-circular base has three rivets on each side to which a handle would have been fastened. The handle, likely made out of wood, is now lost.

The dagger is believed to date to around 1500 B.C. and is the first of its kind found in the area. In fact, it is one of only a dozen or so known to have been found in all of Poland. It was not of local manufacture, but rather arrived in the region with people who inhabited the Danube area in what are now Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia.

It was found by a metal detectorist working with the Wolica historical association under the aegis of the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments. They were looking for objects from the World Wars when they came across the dagger in shallow soil just a few centimeters under the surface. They took pictures and recorded the precise the location to report the find, but encountered no other archaeological material at the site.

A comparable riveted dagger was discovered near Olsztyn in northern Poland in 2014. It was found in a grave just below the arable surface which, while damaged, was found to contain other valuable goods including a gold hair jewel, bronze wire beads and glass beads. The gold and glass were expensive imported items, and the weapon indicates this was the burial of a high-status male.

The grave was classified as one of the Smoszew type, a cemetery characterized by barrows of the Bronze Age Tumulus Culture, ca. 1600-1300 B.C. Unfortunately the recently-discovered dagger was not found in its original context, so we don’t know if it was part of the furnishings of a grave.

The dagger is now being analyzed and studied by the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments. Archaeologists are exploring the find site for further information about the piece, its age and how it got there.

Iron Age vessel with ox handle found in Wales

An Iron Age vessel hoard discovered in a village in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, has been declared official treasure by the Assistant Coroner for Gwent. The vessels were buried together as a group around the time of the Roman conquest in the second half of the 1st century A.D.

The hoard was discovered in March of 2019 by metal detectorist Jon Matthews in a field under pasture in Llantrisant Fawr, Monmouthshire. The finder began to dig, uncovering an enameled bucket mount and a finely decorated saucepan. When he realized the objects were of archaeological note and that there was more still in the ground, he stopped digging at alerted the Portable Antiquities Scheme Cymru.

PAS Cymru archaeologists arrived quickly to excavate the find site. The tips of horns emerged from the soil, then the head of a small copper ox. This proved to the handle of an Iron Age copper alloy bowl. Further excavation revealed it was part of a vessel hoard containing a copper alloy cauldron and strainer, two Roman copper alloy saucepans, two coppered wooden tankards and a large Iron Age wooden bucket with copper alloy fittings. Archaeologists believe it was a drinking set.

A great deal of the wood from the coppered vessels was preserved, so the a large chunk of the hoard was removed en bloc and excavated in laboratory conditions to keep the wood from disintegrating. Soil samples have been taken from inside the vessels and will be analyzed for traces of what they last contained.

Pompeii ceremonial chariot reconstructed

The exceptional ceremonial carriage discovered in the Pompeiian suburb of Civita Giuliana in 2021 has been restored and placed on public display for the first time.

While other carriages and carts have been found in Pompeii, this one is unique in Italian archaeology because it was a pilentum, a vehicle used by the elites for ceremonial occasions. Livy wrote that the senate granted Roman matrons the right to drive to sacred festivals and games in the pilentum in recognition of their donation of gold and jewelry to the treasury after Marcus Furius Camillus’ defeat of Veii in 396 B.C.

The chariot is adorned with bronze and silver medallions decorated with reliefs of explicit erotic scenes, cupids and female figures. Archaeologists believe it was used to transport a new bride, and perhaps her mother or mother-in-law, to her marital home after the wedding. It has therefore been dubbed the Bride’s Chariot.

Its condition and preservation make it one-of-a-kind too. Its iron wheel rims, bronze cladding, tin and silver decorations, the iron framework of the back seat, even the wood wheel hubs that were mineralized by the volcanic ash, survived. The carriage was painstakingly excavated by the experts from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, specialists in the preservation or wood as well as metals. At every stage, whenever they encountered a void they filled it with plaster and made a cast of the space decomposed organic material had once occupied. Therefore, the parts of the chariot that did not survive — the axle, the platform, the ropes, the vegetal decorations — were able to be recreated from the casts.

The carriage has now been reconstructed with modern materials like plexiglass and wood standing in for the lost parts. The surviving original elements have been integrated into the reconstruction.

The reconstructed pilentum is part of a new exhibition at the Baths of Diocletian that explores the our relationship with classical antiquity as seen through millennia of cultural, intellectual and artistic transmission. The plaster casts of two victims of Vesuvius found in the same luxury villa as the carriage are also part of the exhibition, as is the Hercules figure recently found at the Appia Antica Archaeological Park. The Instant and Eternity: Between Us and the Ancients exhibition runs from May 4th through July 30th.

Intaglio gemstones lost down drain found in Roman bathhouse

Thirty-six Roman carved gemstones lost in a bathhouse 2,000 years ago have been found in Carlisle, just south of Hadrian’s Wall. Discovered in the drain of the high-status bathhouse used by the elite cavalry unit garrisoning the Roman fort of Uxelodunum on Hadrian’s Wall, they were lost in the 3rd century. The intaglio stones were embedded in signet rings, but the vegetable-based glues used in the settings were weakened by the heat and steam of the bathhouse. The gemstones fell out and were washed down the drain, probably before the owners even realized they were gone.

Carved from semi-precious stones like amethyst, jasper and carnelian, the intaglio stones range in size from 5mm to 16mm and were artfully engraved with tiny images of Roman deities including Venus, Ceres, Fortuna and Apollo. Surprisingly for a garrison town, there are very few deities with a military connection among the stones. They were found alongside more than 40 women’s hairpins and 105 glass beads, 35 of them believed to have come from a single necklace. Pottery, weapons and coins were also discovered in the bath drains.

Archaeologists first unearthed the remains of a Roman bathhouse in 2017 during an excavation at the proposed site of the Carlisle Cricket Club’s new floodproof pavilion. The bathhouse was built around 210 A.D. on a massive scale. The brick walls were three-and-a-half feet thick. Entire rooms complete with flooring, water pipes, the pilae stacks (tile risers) of the hypocaust system and many artifacts were discovered, along with a highly significant inscription dedicated to Julia Domna, wife of the emperor Septimius Severus and mother of Caracalla. It is the largest Roman building ever discovered on Hadrian’s wall.

Tiles branded with the IMP stamp indicate the bath complex was built by the Imperial workshop when Septimus Severus was in the area for a 208 A.D. military campaign in Caledonia. He died in York just 40 miles away from Carlisle in 211. The bathhouse was built for the use of the elite of the Ala Petriana cavalry regiment. One thousand strong, it was the largest regiment on Hadrian’s Wall manning the largest fort, and therefore had the largest bath. The discovery of the gemstones with such a high proportion of non-military deities suggest elite women also utilized the bathhouse.

Celtic scissors found in Munich grave

A pair of 2300-year-old scissors have been discovered in a Celtic cremation grave in Munich. The scissors are in exceptional condition, with the blades still sharp and shiny.

“A pair of scissors that are more than 2,300 years old and in a condition as if they could still be used today – that’s a very special find,” says Prof. Mathias Pfeil from the BLfD. “The fortunate fact that this tool was so excellently preserved is just as impressive as the craftsmanship of this object,” says Pfeil.

Archaeologists with the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (BLfD) were called in when a disposal crew searching for unexploded World War II ordnance at a construction site in Munich’s Sendling borough encountered underground structures of suspected archaeological interest. The BLfD team found the tomb in the middle of a square structure formed by four wooden posts. It dates to the 3rd or 2nd century B.C., a period when the Celts cremated their dead and interred the cinerary remains in pits together with grave goods.

In addition to the scissors, this grave also contained a folded sword, the remains of a shield, a spearhead, a razor and a fibula. All of the grave goods are objects of impressive craftsmanship that attest to the high social status of the deceased.

The scissors were multifunctional devices. They could have been used to cut hair, textiles, even to sheer sheep. The sword was ritually destroyed by being heated and folded so it was unusable. This may have been a ritual offering or a “killing” of the sword so it could follow its owner into the afterlife.