Last May, metal detectorist Louise Stahlschmidt found some melted lumps of bronze and round bronze artifacts she called “buttons” while exploring a farmed field in Trompgård, north Jutland, Denmark, for the Vendsyssel Historical Museum. She called in her finds and sent pictures. Museum curator Jeppe Boel Jepsen reacted with unprintable enthusiasm when he saw the “buttons” were red enameled bronze fittings characteristic of an Iron Age wagon burial.

The museum immediately secured funding for an excavation of the site, but they had to wait for the crops to be harvested and for the weather to cooperate, so it was winter before they were able to follow up on the exciting discovery. They also needed to enlist the aid of a cadre of amateur archaeologist volunteers like Louise Stahlschmidt without whom the museum could never cover enough ground for a thorough exploration with the limited time and money at its disposal.

When they finally were able to excavate the site, they found the melted fittings from the carriage. The wagon had been set on fire at the time of the burial, hence the oddly shaped lumps Stahlschmidt had found.

The carriage is a rare prize, the stuff that Danish archaeologists dream of on their most feverish nights. It is a Dejbjerg type carriage, named after the first discoveries of their kind, two wagon burials unearthed by archaeologist Henry Petersen in Dejbjerg Præstegårdsmose, western Jutland, in 1881 and 1883. The early Iron Age wagons were manufactured between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D. somewhere in southeastern Europe, where they are more frequently found, and imported into what is now Denmark. Only eight of them have been found in Denmark and northern Germany combined.

The carriages alone were of immense value when they were burned and buried, and this burial was laden with grave goods — a drinking horn, a drinking glass, bronze kettles, a game board with glass playing pieces, a gold ring, fragments of silver that may have been part of drinking cups of the Boscoreale type, only three of which have been found in Denmark before — which make it one of the richest graves from the transitional period between the pre-Roman and Roman Iron Age ever discovered in Denmark.

The team had to search far and wide with their metal detectors to find more artifacts pointing to the central grave site where the people were buried. At the last hour of three days of searching, they found the grave. Alas, someone had beaten them to the punch in antiquity — the grave was looted — but there were intriguing remains including the hole made by the digging of the original grave, the remnants of cremation and a piece of burned human leg.

After the fire went out, the excavations were collected together with the burned leg of the grave and placed in an oven. The oven has been set in the grave and the fire pit covered. After an unknown period, the tomb has been restored, and the grave has since been moved to a village just a few hundred meters from the grave. This building has previously been partially studied by the museum. This iron age village was simultaneously detected by the detector with the detector, and parts of the burial equipment were also found on this site. Thus, this is a family that reinforces their possessions, their status and their relations with other elite families beyond Europe, at an ancestral cave, not only by the tombs but also at the settlements.

Archaeologists excavating the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Krefeld have unearthed thousands of artifacts attesting to a 1st century rebellion of Batavian tribesemen against Rome.

The Batavians, whose native territory was the delta between the Lower Rhine and the Waal, were long-time allies of Rome. Considered the bravest of all Germanic tribes, they had formed the core of the imperial guard since Augustus and had a special deal with the empire that exempted them from all tribute and taxes. The only resources the Batavians were required to contribute were fighting men, infantry and especially cavalry, famed for their amphibious ability to cross rivers on horseback in full armour. They contributed soldiers in far greater proportion than other Roman allies, an estimated 5,000 men out of a total population of just 35,000.

In 69 AD, the turbulent Year of the Four Emperors that followed the death of Nero, Rome pissed off the wrong Batavians. The year before Fonteius Capito, the governor of Germania Inferior had had Batavian prince Julius Paullus executed on false charges of rebellion. He sent Paullus’ kinsman Gaius Julius Civilis to Nero in chains on the same trumped up charges, but Nero died before rendering judgment. His successor Galba acquitted Civilis and sent him home. He also dissolved the Germanic bodyguard, however, and the Batavians saw this as a grave insult.

Then came the conscriptions. Roman chronicler Tacitus describes this trigger of the Batavian rebellion in his Histories in reliably salacious terms:

At the orders of Vitellius a levy of the young Batavians was now being made. This burden, which is naturally grievous, was made the heavier by the greed and licence of those in charge of the levy: they hunted out the old and the weak that they might get a price for letting them off; again they dragged away the children to satisfy their lust, choosing the handsomest — and the Batavian children are generally tall beyond their years.

Civilis, who had already decided to rebel against at Rome, used this latest outrage as a fulcrum to move the whole tribe to rebellion and soon persuaded neighboring tribes to join in the cause.

Civilis turned to force and organized the Canninefates, the Frisians, and the Batavians, each tribe in a troop by itself: the Roman line was drawn up to oppose them not far from the Rhine, and the vessels which had been brought here after the burning of the forts were turned to front the foe. The battle had not lasted long when a cohort of the Tungri transferred its standards to Civilis, and the Roman soldiers, demoralized by this sudden betrayal, were cut down by allies and foes alike. There was the same treachery also on the part of the fleet: some of the rowers, being Batavians, by pretending a lack of skill interfered with the sailors and combatants; presently they began to row in the opposite direction and bring the sterns to the bank on which the enemy stood; finally, they killed such of the helmsmen and centurions as did not take their view, until the entire fleet of twenty-four vessels either went over to the enemy or was captured.

This victory was glorious for the enemy at the moment and useful for the future. They gained arms and boats which they needed, and were greatly extolled as liberators throughout the German and Gallic provinces.

The 10-month excavation at the site near the Rhine, archaeologists found coins, weapons, helmets, a soldier’s decorated belt buckle and the skeletal remains of more than 300 horses believed to have been casualties of this battle.

The vast dig (covering almost 10 acres in area) unearthed more than artifacts from the brief window of the Batavian rebellion. Close to 6,500 graves were discovered encompassing burials over the course of a millennium, from 800 B.C. to 800 A.D., many containing significant gave goods. It is one of the largest ancient cemeteries north of the Alps.

The archaeological material is now being studied and conserved at the Burg Linn Museum where a selection of items from before, during and after the rebellion will go on display next year.