Archaeologists have unearthed an exceptional settlement from the La Tène period rich with amber, luxury ceramics, gold and silver coins near the city of Hradec Králové in the northern Czech Republic. Covering 25 hectares (62 acres), it is by far the largest Celtic settlement found in Bohemia, and unique in its features and scale as a trade and manufacturing center that grew and prospered on the ancient European Amber Road.
The site was discovered during an excavation along the route of planned highway construction. By fortunate happenstance, the site had never been subject to agricultural activity or to metal detectorists, leaving an great density of artifacts just a few inches into the topsoil. Archaeologists recovered an astonishing 22,000 bags of finds, one of the largest collections of artifacts ever found in Bohemia.
The team of archaeologists discovered hundreds of gold and silver Celtic coins, coin dies, fragments of ceramic vessels and a particularly rich collection of jewelry, including bronze and iron fibulae, armlets, metallic fixtures from belts, glass beads and amber. Structures found include the remains of homes, industrial production facilities and religious sanctuaries. It reached its peak in the 2nd century B.C., preceding the era of the oppidia, large fortified settlements with centralized administrative functions.
Tomáš Mangel, an archaeologist from the University of Hradec Králové, explains:
“The settlement was active from the very end of the 3rd century BC and ended in the early 1st century BC. It represents what we call a ‘central agglomeration’, a settlement with key economic and social functions.
“We’ve identified several pottery kilns, signs of glass processing, and finds of amber, which was a major trade commodity at the time. There’s also a large number of gold and silver coins, some of which were even minted right here on site.”
One particularly exceptional find is a ceramic shard engraved with a simple image of a horse, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. According to experts, such finds are extremely rare in Europe.
The excavation is now complete and the artifacts are currently at the Museum of Eastern Bohemia where they are being cleaned, catalogued and studied. A small selection of artifacts will go on display within the next few months, but the more comprehensive exhibition will have to wait until all the objects have been analyzed and recorded.
A super find! It will provide so much more information on everyday Celtic life than the usual “wealth” of evidence of ancient funerary practices and rituals.
Indeed, I would be interested what that “burial mound —192 metres long and over 15 metres wide— dating back to the 4th millennium BC” could reveal 😉️
About the ‘Era of the Oppidia’ I am not so sure. There were fortified smaller settlements and larger almost city-like structures all the time, which does not mean that there were no considerable changes.
Amber had already been traded through around the 1st Millennium BC, and it is safe to assume that the Celtic ‘Hallstatt Period’ kicked off with –you guessed it– the economic activities in Hallstatt, i.e. until in the 4th century the trading culture at least temporarily was changed to a period of war and expansion.
Nonetheless -not on a hilltop, and in contrast to e.g. the oppidum of ‘Menosgada’- the ‘Manching oppidum’ was apparently founded in the 3rd century BC, and with 380 hectares (940 acres) it was larger than the inner town of Manching is today.
Among important burial mounds were the ones in Hochdorf, Glauberg or –in what Caesar would stamp as Gaul– Vix, notably each with their corresponding oppida. There is, however, a lot more to those funerals than “funerary practices and rituals”.