24.2.2003 Fields hid a Celtic city

The field near Němčice nad Hanou is not at first sight exceptional. In 2003, however, archaeologists discovered that a Celtic town was located on the same site in the past. The settlement stood on the site of the so-called Amber Trail.

From the start, archaeologists were sure they had stumbled upon something special. One of the biggest finds of the last decades in Moravia.

"Future research will have to confirm whether this is indeed a Celtic oppidum. However, it is already clear that it is a large, extremely important manufacturing and trading centre, which has an obvious of supra-regional significance," said Miloš Čižmář, director of the Institute of Archaeological Heritage Care in Brno.

He added that what was exceptional about the German settlement was that its inhabitants traded and maintained contacts not with Bohemia, as in Hradisko, but with the Danube region, i.e. Austria and Hungary. "This is something completely new that we have not known before," Čižmář added.

And the archaeologists were right, in 2010 the site became a cultural monument and was ranked among the most important archaeological settlements in the Czech Republic. On maps, the site is referred to as Kratiny or Zadní dlátko on the border of the Němčice nad Hanou and Víceměřice cadastres.

According to Čižmář, the Celtic settlement was located on the route of the so-called Amber Trail and shows clear links to the southern regions, the Danube and the Mediterranean. "Thus, we can assume that it was one of the most important production and trade centres," the archaeologist noted.

Last year, archaeologists investigated a Celtic glass workshop near Němčice nad Hanou. They started excavations at the end of July. According to experts, it is the oldest documented glass workshop north of the Alps. "The 10x18 metre area was excavated at the site of the greatest concentration of glass waste and evidence of production," archaeologist Ivan Čižmář said.

Together with his colleagues, he discovered amber raw materials, beads, iron slag and broken glass, large collections of pottery and animal bones. There were also bronze and iron fragments of buckles, parts of belt chains and gold and silver coins.

Of course, archaeologists also found glass artefacts. In particular, the characteristic dark blue beads and fragments of seamless bracelets. There were also glass fibres, semi-finished or scrap products.

Sources: www.denik.cz, https://olomoucka.drbna.cz/, www.idnes.cz