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Fragment of a Bronze Age gold bracelet found by a detector
Categories: Finds and rescue research in the Czech Republic
Hi everyone.
9/16/2024 Monday. On Mondays and Thursdays I usually walk Zeryk, but this time Zeryk gets a day off and I am in Prague at 9:30 in Bethlehem Chapel. Then a little arranging and then I take the helm and a little excursion begins. I want to show the young people that all things should be done properly from A to Z, even when visiting a hospitality place. I just don't want them to embarrass me in Prague. These young people suck beer like a Japanese car sucks gasoline. We start at the King of Brabant, then to Havelska for a treat, stop at U Vejvodů, there's a taproom at Pinkas.and at the Red Deer, I'm told I shouted, "I can't take it anymore, but pour it on me and it'll soak in. Praiseworthy action.
On Thursday after three o'clock I'm standing by the mega field, horny as a bottle of leyden, enjoying the complete peace and quiet. I let go of Zeryk and slowly make my way forward. After an hour, Zeryk reports another find. I want to heel-toe him, but I don't have to. I can see him now. Something's shiny here. I examine the find for a moment, thinking it might be a dick_Right. I keep looking at it, turning it over and focusing on the color, it doesn't match, it's kind of faded. The ducats of Rudolf II, which I examined in the Pardubice museum, had a different colour. We'll track them down at home and send them to be measured, see what they added. Then the memory of Lydia and her coins made of élektra, a natural alloy of gold and silver, crosses my mind. Many, many years earlier, a Neolithic package had come here from further afield. So why not gold from Anatolia. I don't think so. I turn off my thought processes, make a few little graves as markers, and slowly probe by probe, chandeliering the defined space. Since I know Zherek's reaction to differently tilted objects in the ground, I go through it both right to left and front to back. Unfortunately, nothing. I'm done, but I'll be back.
There's not much from that field, but from the finds in the vicinity, it could be lathenian or bronzes. At the very end of my search in the books of Latenian finds I come across ribbed bracelets from the Swartna. There's a match after all. Then comes the Bronze Age. Well, here we are, three minutes into it. That'll be it. The main feature is the indentations, the rhizomes on the sides. So I've got a fragment of a gold flat bracelet on a spine decorated with longitudinal ribs and rim decorated with scallops _ dating to the Middle Bronze Age''. Bombshell, that's cool. I'm begging my friend to take it to the lab on Sunday, saying I'm grading it DB, and that it's bound to have some sizzle and be about 18 carats = 750/1000. Then every night after that I open my email with a question. Already?
In the meantime, I'll look up some info on gold. In Bohemia, the oldest find is a gold plate from Bylan belonging to the bell-shaped cupculture_Neolithic. In the older DB, gold wire jewellery is mostly found. An exception and unique are two cast bracelets from Minice in Kralupsko. Gold foil was used in decorating daggers or needles. An important piece of information is the results of the analysis of the gold composition from the older DB. Less than a kilogram of gold finds from this period are divided into two groups, each containing a different proportion of silver plus copper. The first has about 25% silver and the second about 11% silver. Either way, it is not river gold as it has a silver content of up to 4%. (Due to the effect of certain dissolved substances in water and a certain chemical process, silver and other impurities disappear from the gold and therefore river gold has a high purity_ a kind of natural refining.) In central Bohemia, eastern Bohemia boasts 55 gold finds (2008). This is also the case of the Hradec Eights, strips of expanded sheet 3 mm wide and 0.05 to 0.2 mm thick, and gold discs (convex disks) with holes around the edges for attachment and decorated with a spiral. In the MaPDB, these are wire spirals, necklaces, rings, spectacle pendants and gold sheet products such as tiaras, bands and foils. Among the cast products are a golden axe from Sokolč and a golden needle from Hradec Králové.
From this list, it follows that our bracelet fragment is more likely to date from the Early Bronze Age. To this I add the description of circular jewellery for the environment of the ash fields, quote , "A characteristic form of Middle Bronze Agethat still survives in the ash field environment is the metal bracelet with longitudinal ribs. Well after all that, as a layman, I date it to the transition period between the Middle DB and MDB to about 1300 to 1200 B.C.
The results will come in on Wednesday evening. I'm swirling the drums and opening the attachment. It's in there. Gold 73.734%, silver 25.004% and copper 1.262%, or 16.988 carats. I missed, but I'm satisfied.
Electrum - a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver with traces of copper and other metals. The most famous area for its mining is Anatolia. 'The gold content of naturally occurring élektrum in modern western Anatolia ranges from 70% to 90%, in contrast to the 45-55% content of élektrum from ancient Lydia, although this is the same geographical area'. The second source of électrum in prehistoric times was Egypt, where it was known from about 2500 B.C. I must add a small insertion here. In the older DB, the first glass beads are found in Bohemia, which are believed to have come from Egypt.
I am not claiming that the material used to make that bracelet came from one locality or the other, but according to info from a numismatist specializing in gold coins, he is not aware of an électrum deposit in Europe. Maybe someone will look into this further and in time we will know if it is a natural or artificial alloy.
The find will be handed over to the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice. When I do, I'll mark the find as delivered.
Well, that's about it. It wasn't that hard. A walk in the park compared to the ongoing search for the origin of the lead depot.
Regards Martin
- Literature and picture attachment:
- Archaeology of prehistoric Bohemia / 5_Bronze Age
- Archaeology of Prehistoric Bohemia / 7_Latenian period
- Encyclopedia of prehistoric treasures in Bohemia_Lubor Smejtek, Michal Lutovský, Jiří Militký
- History of Material Culture_Josef Petráň a kolektiv
- https://www.esbirky.cz/
- https://cs.wikipedia.org/
- https://mapy.cz/
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