22. 4.1891 Bronze treasure from Mankovice
Categories: Finds and rescue research in the Czech Republic , Calendar
A total of 88 bronze objects were discovered in 1891 at the train station in Mankovice. At that time, workers were working on the construction of the northern branch of the Emperor Ferdinand railway. The depot included decorative pucks and fragments of wrought iron bracelets.
The huge pit, which was 70 metres long and 20 metres wide, was dug by the workers on the 4.765 kilometres of construction. They were extracting the gravel they needed. And it was at a depth of about 70 metres that the workers came across their first bronze treasure. They had absolutely no idea they had discovered something rare.
"The objects excavated were said to be numerous; unfortunately, there was no one among the workers, supervisors or officials who understood the importance of the find and the preservation ofThe archaeologist Karel Jaromír Maška wrote in the Journal of the Patriotic Museum Association of Olomouc a year after the workers found the treasure.
Maška himself is one of our prominent archaeologists. He discovered the dart jaws of a Neanderthal child and was a researcher in the Moravian Karst. He also found the Stramberk Paleolithic sites of the Shipka Cave, the Devil's Hole and the mass grave of about twenty mammoth hunters in the Forebridge (1894).
According to experts, someone buried the treasure deliberately. According to the findings, it was not a burial site. The objects date from 1,300 to 1,100 BC, the youngest from 900 to 750 BC. Maška only learned of the discovery a few days later, thanks to the district governor. He heard that a gendarme from Suchdol was buying old things from one of the workers.
The treasure contained 88 items, almost unworn. When Maška heard about the find, he immediately went to the place where the workers had dug it up. He discovered a few more fragments. The treasure was given to the Provincial Archives in Opava.
Specifically, it contained 21 fragments of a bracelet made of wrought iron, 41 hollow decorative buds made of thin metal, 8 fragments of afragments of a small spiral tube, a larger spiral tube with 4 threads, a spiral disc with 3, 4 and 6 threads, 3 fragments of a larger ring, a needle 29 centimetres long and 5 millimetres thick, 9 sunsun wheels with four spokes and a beautiful double spiral, each 64 millimetres in diameter with 10 turns and a curved arc.
Sources: www.mankovice.cz, www.denik.cz, https://encyklopedie.brna.cz/
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