Confirmed, the barbarian Goths were as skilled jewellers as the Romans

A recently published study that investigated nearly 2,000-year-old graves near the northern Polish village of Weklice confirmed that the Gothic jewellery making and metalworking methods were on a par with Roman jewellers of the time.

Archaeologist Dr. Magdalena Natuniewicz-Sekułová from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsawava, examined over 3,500 artefacts made of metal, amber, glass or organic materials found in 600 graves of East Germanic Goths and Gepids from the period between the 1st and 2nd centuries. to the 4th century AD.

Analysis of the selection revealed that the high purity silver far exceeded current modern standards. Today's sterling silver jewellery contains 92.5% silver (purity 925). Jewellery from Weklic reaches a purity of 970 - 990, so it has up to 99% precious metal content. The same high purity was also found in gold artefacts: "It turned out that the silver ornaments - clasps, bracelets and items of clothing were made of very high quality metal, the purity of which even exceeded the composition of jewellery produced today. These are very pure and very valuable alloys," explained Dr Natuniewicz-Sekuł.

Pure silver and gold are very malleable, too soft materials, which makes them difficult to work. It is therefore necessary to add other metals, such as copper. Weklic artefacts were processed using demanding processes including gilding and granulation or filigree techniques. Alloys of such high purity would not be processed by these processes today, as working with such a malleable material would be very difficult and time-consuming. Nevertheless, the artists and jewellery makers of the time managed. "These methods were similar in quality to the products of the Roman Empire. So we have more evidence that peoples living outside the Empire were wrongly called 'barbaric'," the lead archaeologist of the research added.

So far, no tools and equipment needed to refine the metals used have been found at the site, leading archaeologists to speculatem that precious metal bars were imported into the area from the Roman Empire despite a strict ban in place at the time. If raw materials were not available, it is also possible that silver and other metals were extracted from coins and other objects.

"It cannot be ruled out that the Goths knew methods of refining and cupellation (separation of precious metals from base metals at high temperature)," Dr Natuniewicz-Sekułová believes. "In this way they may have been able to 'purify' silver obtained from coins, but this is only a conjecture." Coin silver tended to be of relatively low quality, with an average purity of around 800 to 850, so if coins were their source, they must have been very adept at refining precious metals indeed.

Roman Nemec

Sources: thehistoryblog.com, heritagedaily.com, thefirstnews.com