#bronze artifacts

2,700-Year-Old Urartu bronze Shields and Helmet Discovered in Turkey

Three bronze shields and a bronze helmet dedicated to Haldi, the chief god of the Urartians, were discovered during excavations at the Ayanis Castle in Van province in eastern Türkiye.

The discovery was announced on the social media account of Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Minister of Culture and Tourism.

Ayanis Castle was built on a rocky hill close to Ağartı village whose old name was “Ayanis” and situated on the east bank of Lake Van, 38 km east of the capital Tuşpa.

Ayanis Castle, where the temple of Haldi, one of the most intact Urartian temples, is located, was built by the last great King of Urartu, Rusa II, in the mid-7th century BC. Written evidence shows that the fortress was destroyed by a major earthquake and associated fires 20 to 25 years after its construction.

In the Ayanis Castle, known to be the last castle of the Urartu Kingdom, the archeological excavations are ongoing since 1989. The excavations were conducted under the presidency of Prof. Dr. Altan Çilingiroğlu within the scope of Ege University “Van Project” until 2012. The studies are rendered by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Işıklı, associate in the Archeology Department, Literature Faculty, Atatürk University since 2013.

For the last few seasons, the excavation team has been trying to uncover the structures associated with the Haldi Temple in the citadel. In the 2024 excavation season, three bronze shields and a bronze helmet dedicated to Haldi, the chief god of the Urartians, were unearthed. The artifacts found during the excavations in the monumental temple complex dedicated to the god Haldi reflect the richness of Urartian metalwork.

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Işıklı said in his statement, ‘In this year’s excavations, we unearthed 3 bronze shields and 1 helmet, which were found in very good condition. The shields and helmet are dedicated to Haldi, the chief god and god of war. As you know, Ayanis Castle suffered a great earthquake. Because of this earthquake, there is a big collapse caused by the mudbrick walls. many artifacts are deformed because of this. but the artefacts found are in very good condition because they were found on the floor of the room at a depth of about 6-7 meters. Of course, we have some minor fractures and we will complete these with restoration and conservation.’

“There is also a bronze helmet among the artifacts found. We guess that it is a decorated and ceremonial helmet. Because we can see some decorations now, of course, it will be possible to see these ornaments and decorations more clearly after a comprehensive restoration and conservation,” he added.

Professor Işıklı stated that there is strong evidence that the site was used by a royal and religious elite group. After 36 years of excavations, the Ayanis fortress has yielded a rich collection of bronze artifacts, especially bronze weapons. To date, more than 30 bronze shields have been unearthed during the excavations of the castle.

By Leman Altuntaş.

An Ancient Sacrificial Site Found in Poland

In a dried up lake in Poland, a group of metal detectorists stumbled on some buried objects — and uncovered an ancient sacrificial site. The more archaeologists dug into the dry lakebed, the more offerings they found.

Metal detectorists with the Kujawsko-Pomorska Grupa Poszukiwaczy Historii located the sacrificial site in January 2023 while searching a dry lake near Papowo Biskupie, according to a study published Jan. 24 in the journal Antiquity.

Initially, metal detectorists found three piles, or deposits, of bronze artifacts that archaeologists identified as part of an ancient sacrificial site. Photos show these deposits.

Follow-up excavations revealed more details — and hundreds more artifacts — at the dry lake.

Sacrificial offerings at the 2,400-year-old site took two main forms: human bones or bronze artifacts, the study said.

Archaeologists found the bones of at least 33 males and females of various ages. The bones were broken up and “severely fragmented” but did not show signs of “blunt or sharp force trauma.” Still, the bones likely belonged to sacrificial victims, the study said.

Excavations also uncovered over 550 bronze artifacts at the Papowo Biskupie site. Most of the objects were “arm and neck ornaments,” including a necklace with “several swallow-tail pendants and a single glass bead.” Photos show these ornamental offerings.

A pair of “nail-like earrings,” a “flint spearhead” and some artifacts made of deer antlers were also unearthed, the study said and photos show.

The human remains were several centuries older than the bronze artifacts, suggesting that rituals shifted over time from human offerings to metal offerings, the study said.

Based on the plant material found at the site, the offerings were likely “packed into baskets made of birch bark and lined with moss” then left in the lake when it was most waterlogged.

Archaeologists linked the 2,400-year-old sacrificial site to the Lusatian culture, a European Bronze Age culture known only from archaeology. The Papowo Biskupie area is “one of the northernmost communities of the Lusatian culture” and, for this reason, was previously assumed not to engage in “metal-hoarding.” The findings at the sacrificial site challenge this idea.

The Papowo Biskupie sacrificial site is one of the first of its kind in Poland and one of the northernmost bog sites found in Europe.

The dry lake near Papowo Biskupie was a boggy lake until the 19th century when it was drained. In the 1980s, it was drained again and turned into agricultural land, the study said.

Researchers noted that these are “preliminary findings” and excavations at Papowo Biskupie are ongoing.

Papowo Biskupie is about 130 miles northwest of Warsaw.

‘Faces of Sanxingdui’: Bronze Age Relics Shed Light on Mysterious Ancient Kingdom

A golden face with patinaed turquoise eyes stares out of the darkness. Illuminated around it stand three other bronze heads — some have flat tops, others round — all looked over by a giant bronze statue almost 9 feet high. All have the same piercing, angular eyes.

There’s something about the “Faces of Sanxingdui” — as this collection of sculptures is being billed — that feels both familiar and alien. Currently on display at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, they may appear Mayan or Aztec to the untrained eye, but these over-3,000-year-old sculptures weren’t unearthed anywhere near Mesoamerica’s ancient civilizations. They were discovered on China’s Chengdu Plain, at an archeological dig site called Sanxingdui (which translates as “three star mound”).

Thought to be the largest and oldest site left by the Shu kingdom, a civilization in southwestern China once only hinted at in myths and legends, Sanxingdui was not discovered until the 1920s, when a farmer stumbled across objects while digging an irrigation ditch. The site has since been found to contain the ruins of an ancient city made up of residences, sacrificial pits and tombs enclosed by high dirt walls. Archaeologists from the Sanxingdui Museum say the city was established some 4,800 to 2,800 years ago, until it was abandoned around 800 BC for unknown reasons.

The Chinese government has long promoted Sanxingdui as evidence of the country’s long, uninterrupted history — with the discoveries included in history textbooks for more than a decade. And while thousands of visitors have already flocked to the groundbreaking exhibition in Hong Kong, some analysts suggest that the items are also being used to support the Chinese government’s vision of national identity.

The mysterious and talented Shu

The Shu kingdom, which emerged in the Sichuan basin during the Bronze Age, is believed to have developed independently of the Yellow River Valley societies traditionally considered the cradle of Chinese civilization. Its inhabitants created exquisitely crafted bronze, jade, gold and ceramic objects, depicting fantastical beasts, kings, gods and shamans with bulging eyes and enlarged ears.

Around 120 of the items are currently on display in Hong Kong, and it’s the first time many of these objects, most of which were excavated between 2019 and 2022, have been showcased outside Sichuan province.

Remarkably, the sculptures predate the Terracotta Army, a collection of earthenware statues depicting the armies of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang, by at least 1,000 years. Wang Shengyu, an assistant curator at the Palace Museum said the objects are far more advanced, imaginative, and artistic than those being produced anywhere else in China at that time.

“You can tell that it’s very sculptural and very artsy,” Wang said at the exhibition opening, pointing to a roughly 1-foot-tall bronze figure whose fantastical, braided hair extends out to three times the height of its body and, had it not been broken, would stretch much further. “You can imagine how magnificent it was. From above his nose and all the way up, it would’ve been over 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) tall, according to the fragments (archeologists) found. The end of the pigtail is on his shoulder.”

Little is known about the Shu kingdom other than what’s been discovered on the 3.6-square-kilometer (1.4-square-mile) site outside Chengdu. There is no evidence of a written Shu language, and historical literature contains scant information about its culture other than a handful of myths and legends, including a reference to a Shu king called Can Cong whose eyes were said to have protruded — perhaps explaining why so many of the 13,000 relics recovered from the site feature bulging eyes.

After the Shu state was conquered by the Qin dynasty in 316 BC, Shu culture was “buried” under the “mainstream” culture that later emerged on China’s central plain, Chinese authorities wrote in a 2013 UNESCO submission seeking to have Sanxingdui and two nearby archeological sites recognized as World Heritage Sites. They are currently on UNESCO’s “tentative list.”

Since 1986, eight excavated pits at Sanxingdui have yielded giant masks of gods with bulbous, insect-like eyes and protruding ears, mythical creatures with gaping mouths and an almost 4-meter-tall (13-foot) bronze “tree of life” sculpture decorated with ornaments like a Christmas tree. All the items were found shattered, burned and buried, leading experts to believe the pits were used for ritual sacrifices. Some have now been painstakingly re-constructed by archaeologists. “It took 10 years to reconstruct the tree,” said Wang Shengyu, an assistant curator at the museum who helped curate the exhibition.

That tree is not on show in Hong Kong, as it is considered too precious to send abroad, but a section of one of six others discovered and ornaments are on display at the museum, as well as a 3D holographic projection of what experts think it would have looked like – its layers and branches adorned with birds, flowers, fruit, dragons, bells as well as jade and gold foil ornaments. The set are thought to have been part of a theater space.

‘Historical myth’ of a continuous civilization

The exhibition places these items in the context of other ancient civilizations and includes the Shu among the many societies to have existed in the country’s “5,000-year history.” According to a press release from organizers, museum and Hong Kong government officials at the opening stressed the “continuity, inventiveness, unity, inclusiveness and emphasis on peace and harmony” of Chinese history.

Henry Tang, chairman of the governing body behind the West Kowloon Cultural District (where the Palace Museum is located) and a former candidate for Hong Kong’s top leadership role, said in a statement that the district and museum are looking to “promote cultural and artistic exchanges between China and the world, ‘tell China’s story well’, and strengthen the public’s cultural self-confidence.”

But the narrative that the Shu kingdom was innately Chinese is contentious, according to Ian Johnson, a senior fellow for China Studies at US think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Over the past few decades, the (Chinese Communist Party) has been trying to push a historical myth that all the peoples who have ever lived inside the current borders of the People’s Republic are ‘Chinese,’” he said over email.

“The basic idea is that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) encompasses people who naturally belong together and therefore, from today’s standpoint, form a nation. Hence any effort to have autonomy or even independence is taboo — it runs against history.”

The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, and its government has often used China’s continuous history as evidence that ethnic groups such as the Tibetans and the Uyghurs have always belonged to China.

Johnson said that there was little support for the idea that civilizations along the Yellow River had much in common with those in the Sichuan Basin.

“They have commonalities but are not the same — just as ancient Assyrians and Phoenicians and Greeks weren’t the same, even if they shared certain things in common,” he said, adding: “sponsoring these kinds of exhibitions are popular and win the government credit.”

When asked to comment, the Hong Kong Palace Museum said the exhibition was “curated based on academic and archaeological research” and that it reinforces its mission to deepen audiences’ “understanding of the lives and cultures of various regions and ethnic groups as well as exchanges among them in ancient China, which have contributed to the magnificence of China’s civilization and its ‘diversity in unity’ pattern of development.”

2500-Year-Old Bronze Age Artifacts Found in Poland

A metal detectorist looking for a World War I artifacts near Turobin, eastern Poland, found a hoard of Bronze Age jewelry instead. They were produced by the Lusatian culture in the waning era of their dominance in the region, ca. 550-400 B.C. Lusatian artifacts are extremely rare finds in this part of Poland, and the ones that have been discovered are usually individual pieces or fragments.

Łukasz Jabłoński, armed with a permit from the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Lublin, scanned the field on January 21, 2023. Digging under the snow, he found 13 bronze artifacts 8-10 inches under the surface of the soil. He immediately reported his discovery to the conservation office in Zamość and turned in the objects.

The 13 pieces include a cloak pin 6 inches long with a large spiral twisted wire terminal 2.8 inches in diameter. The pointed tip of the pin is missing. A second pin is even longer — 6.5 inches — and is intact with its pointed end. The head is a smaller spiral 1.2 inches in diameter with a decorative knob in the center.

Another stand-out piece is a twisted neck torc in penannular shape made from a single piece of bronze wire with tapered ends. The twisting technique was an advanced metalworking skill, especially using bronze because it hardens quickly and must be annealed repeatedly during the twisting process to prevent it from breaking.

There are also eight bracelets in the group: two 4.7 inches in diameter made of thick bronze wire with blunt overlapping ends, two made of single-stranded flat wire (one undecorated, the other incised with herringbone lines), and four massive ones three inches in diameter with overlapping ends.

The hoard is now being conserved and studied at the Museum of the Biłgoraj Land in Biłgoraj. The location of the find site has been kept secret to deter looters while archaeologists excavate it to find out more about the deposit and to look for any additional artifacts that might be in the area.

Rare Bronze Age Artifacts Discovered in North Wales

The two moulds used to cast axes during the Middle Bronze Age have now been declared treasure

A pair of rare artifacts dating back around 3,400 years to the Middle Bronze Age have been declared treasure after they were uncovered in North Wales almost five years ago. The two bronze mould valves were used to cast palstaves (a kind of axe) during the Bronze Age.

They were discovered by George Borrill, from Llandudno Junction, while metal-detecting on rough pastureland in Conwy on August 12, 2017. Prior to Mr Borrill's find, only 17 such moulds had been found in the UK.

Mr Borrill reported his find to Dr Susie White, Finds Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Wales (PAS Cymru) and the find was subsequently reported as treasure by curatorial staff based at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. At an inquest held at Ruthin County Hall today (June 1), Kate Sutherland, assistant coroner for North Wales east and central, recorded the find as treasure.

The moulds are about eight inches in length and feature a single midrib decoration with a side-loop. The two mould valves, which date back to 1400-1275 BCE, once formed a matching pair, the two locking together – one a positive valve with projecting tenons and the other the negative valve with matching recesses.

The outer surfaces have raised rib and moulding decoration, each of a slightly differing design. Adam Gwilt, Principal Curator for Prehistory at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales said: “This is a significant new archaeological find for Wales.

"Moulds such as these are quite rare across Britain. They offer us great insights into the bronze casting traditions operating in North Wales during the Middle Bronze Age.

"The growing evidence for moulds and palstave hoard finds in this area suggests that a range of bronze palstaves with midrib decorations were made here and were then exchanged and transported over long distances at this time, to their place of use. It is likely that the nearby Great Orme Bronze Age copper mines, some of the most important prehistoric mines in Europe and in their heyday during the Middle Bronze Age, provided the local source of copper for bronzesmiths.

"Tin from Cornwall was accessed, to mix with the molten copper to form these bronze artefacts. This matching pair of moulds appears to have been deliberately buried, rather than being recycled at the end of their lives, perhaps during a symbolic act of returning these powerful objects to their place of origin.”

Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales hopes to acquire this treasure find, following its independent valuation by the Treasure Valuation Committee.

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