So, we began our acquaintance with the culture of the Europeans of the Iron Age, which was called Hallstatt - after the name of the area where many burials of this culture were discovered. But it is by no means limited to this place. The burials of Hallstatt, and in particular the Celts who belonged to it, are scattered throughout Europe. In some places, archaeologists have found very rich tombs. Today we will tell you about two such burials.
Vix (Celtic necropolis) is located in the area of the French village Vix in the north of Burgundy. It is a very important prehistoric burial complex from the late Hallstatt and early Laten times. It was a large fortified settlement and, in addition, several mounds. And in one of them, the burial of the "Lady from Vix" was found, dated to about 500 BC. NS. Moreover, it is very important that this grave was not robbed and has survived to this day safe and sound. There were found simply amazingly rich finds, including a lot of jewelry and, most importantly, a unique "crater from Vix", which today is the largest known vessel of ancient times (height 1.63 m).
One of the impressive handles of the Vix crater (Museum at Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
The complex is located in the center of a steep flat-topped hill on the site of an ancient fortified settlement of the Celts. The total area of the necropolis in this area is 42 hectares. Moreover, all his burials belong to the Late Bronze Age (Hallstatt culture up to the end of La Tene). In the 6th and 5th centuries. BC. there was also a settlement on a fertile plain and, moreover, became an important river and land transport hub in Northern Europe.
"Crater from Vix" (Museum at Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
The same boat. A view of the frieze.
Digging began here in April 1930 and was dug by both professionals and amateurs. They found a lot of ceramic shards (more than 40 thousand pieces have been recorded to date), various brooches and various items made of bronze and iron. But the mound itself with the burial of the "lady" was excavated only in 1953. And there, in addition to all other finds, a unique crater was discovered - a wine vessel made by Spartan craftsmen. Apparently, this impressive piece also made an impression on the contemporaries of the “Lady from Vix”, who did not regret such a valuable burial gift for her. After that, excavations in the Vicks area continued in the 90s and after 2001. In a word, no matter how hard they try, they still have not succeeded in digging "everything" there. Apparently people lived in this place for a long time and left a lot of their "traces" here.
For example, on Mount Lassois, adjacent to the burial site, the remains of fortifications, ditches and walls up to 8 m thick were found. They also found here houses with hearths and various household buildings. In a word, it was indeed a very large and well-fortified settlement of the Bronze Age and Metal Age.
The 2006 excavations were particularly successful. A whole complex of several buildings was discovered, the largest of which was 35 m long and 21 m wide, with a ceiling height of 12 m. The most important thing is that this find has no analogues in the culture of early Celtic Europe. Archaeologists have named this structure "Palace of the Lady Vicks". Well, and so many shards were found that this clearly indicates that this place was a populated place whose inhabitants traded with remote areas, for example, Greece, since fragments of characteristic black-figure vases were found here. Although they could get here from the south of France, where there were Greek colonies. There are especially many fragments of wine amphorae. Apparently, the inhabitants of this settlement loved Greek wine, and in these amphoras it was transported to them.
Reconstruction of the "carriage from Vix" (Museum at Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
They also found a lot of jewelry: brooches, decorated with amber or even corals, as well as earrings, beads, rings and bracelets. That is, the locals loved to decorate themselves and did not spare money for the purchase (or manufacture) of jewelry! They also found glassware and small bronze figurines, most likely the work of Greek craftsmen from the colonies along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. But the weapons mainly came across arrowheads and spears and also axes.
That is, the settlement on Mount Lassois clearly had a very high status. This is also proved by the level of its fortification, the presence of the citadel and the lower town lying at the foot of the mountain, as well as rare and imported goods. And, of course, local burials in local burial mounds testify to the same.
Wheels from the burial. Reconstructed based on the preserved metal parts. (Museum in Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
The burial of the Lady of the Weeks is also very interesting. True, all the organic matter in it has practically decomposed. Still, from 500 BC. NS. a lot of time has passed. But the sex of the buried woman was determined. She was clearly a woman, since many decorations were found in the tomb, but weapons were completely absent. Who she was, of course, it is impossible to say. A high-ranking queen or priestess. It is important that her position in the society of the inhabitants of the settlement on Mount Lassois was very high. Otherwise, they would not have put so many jewelry and such expensive things as the "Vix crater" in her tomb. She is believed to be between 30 and 35 years old at the time of her death.
Reconstruction of the building where Lady and Vixa lived.
Layout of this building. (Museum in Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
The burial looked like a chamber made of wood measuring 4 mx 4 m, above which an embankment of earth and stones was built, and the embankment was rather large: 42 m in diameter and another 5 meters in height. The body of the deceased lay in the cart, removed from the wheels, but they were right there. The wood has rotted, but the wooden parts are well preserved and the cart was reconstructed using them. And also buried with the deceased: a 24-carat gold neck grivna weighing 480 grams, a bronze gryvnia, six brooches, six bracelets and another bracelet made of amber beads. There was also the same Etruscan crater made of oinochoya made of bronze ("a jug for wine") - a characteristic ancient Greek jug with one handle and an original whisk, similar to a clover leaf, to pour wine into three goblets at once, which the master cupbearers knew how to do!), and a few more wine goblets made in Etruria and Attica. One of the latter was dated to 525 BC. NS. That is, the time of the burial ground is also dated from it. It is interesting that all the dishes were clearly on the benches, and not on the ground, but the wooden tables and benches have not survived and have not survived to this day.
Typical oinohoya. (Louvre, Paris)
Another Etruscan ceramic oinhoya. (Museum of Ceramics, Valencia, Spain)
Reconstruction of the burial chamber. (Museum in Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
Gold hryvnia with figures of pegasus. (Museum in Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
As for the famous 1.63 m high crater, it is necessary to tell about it separately. Let's start with the fact that its own weight is over 200 kg. The Greek crater is a vessel designed to mix wine with water at a feast, because the Greeks did not drink undiluted wine. But usually craters were made of clay. The Vix crater was, firstly, very large, and secondly, metal. It was made from more than seven separate parts that had alphabetic markings, which tells us that it was delivered to Burgundy in disassembled form (and indeed it’s a pleasure to drag this whopper and weight below average!), And already here, on the spot, they collected of them a vessel. The container itself was made of a sheet of chased bronze. Its weight is about 60 kg. The bottom is rounded, with a maximum diameter of 1.27 m, while its volume is 1100 liters. Moreover, the work is very delicate in the literal sense of the word, because the thickness of the crater walls is only from 1 mm to 1.3 mm. That is why they found him crushed, that is, he could not bear the weight of the mound above him. So then it had to be restored, which was a very difficult task. Legs are metal, cast, weighing 20.2 kg. The crater handles are very massive and weigh about 46 kg each. They depict the faces of Medusa the Gorgon, and along the rim of the crater there is a frieze depicting hoplites in armor. It is made in the form of a bronze ring, attached to the crater, and to which the handles are attached. The frieze depicts eight chariots drawn by four horses. Each chariot and charioteer is accompanied by one armed hoplite. The cover is made of bronze sheet, weighs 13.8 kg. Today this crater is considered the largest among the known Greek bronze vessels. And where was he found? In Burgundy !!! Most likely it was a gift somehow related to winemaking. Unfortunately, the history of this crater, perhaps completely unique in its own way, we will never know.
"Crater of Vix" very accurately conveys the appearance of the warriors and chariots of that era. (Museum in Chatillon-sur-Seine, Burgundy, France)
Spartan warrior on the frieze from the crater.
In addition to the female burial in "kurgan I", as many as five large kurgans were discovered there, and three of them were excavated. Kurgan II was also not small - 33 m in diameter. An urn with cremated remains was also found in the mound, but the dating is different - 850 BC. NS. In the second mound, the remains of a woman were also found, as well as a chariot (or rather, what was left of it!), On two iron axles and … also a gold bracelet. In the third mound, destroyed in 1846, there was again a cart, and also an Etruscan bronze bowl with four handles and images of griffins. Here in 1994 were found fragments of two statues - a warrior and a woman, made of stone and surrounded by a small fence. What all this could mean … nobody knows.
Mound from Hochdorf.
The same mound is seen from above.
However, the significance of these findings is already very great. First of all, it speaks of a pronounced stratification in La Tene society. There were buried here "princesses" or "princes" in the sense that we understand these two terms today - is unknown and is under discussion. In any case, the comparison is obvious: there is a sharp contrast with the previous era, in which all burials are similar to one another. Moreover, similar necropolises of the same time as Vicks exist in other places. These are fortified settlements found at Hoineburg and Glauberg. And here we see the same thing. That is, there was a new social class, which, when buried, received complex and costly mounds to build, gold jewelry that are not in ordinary graves, "expensive imports" (the same Spartan crater) and even beads made of amber.
Reconstruction of the burial chamber of the "Khokhdor leader". (Burial Museum in Hochdorf, Germany)
A similar burial, only for men, is the burial of the "prince", dated to about 530 BC. e., was found by an amateur archaeologist in Germany in 1977 near the village of Hochdorf an der Enz, belonging to the municipality of Eberdingen, in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. The height of the mound is 6 m, its diameter is 40. But these, as determined, were its original dimensions. And by the time of excavations, due to soil erosion, its height had dropped to one meter. The burial of the "Hochdorf leader" is considered the tomb of the "Celtic Tutankhamun" and this is not an exaggeration.
Here he was … "handsome". He let go of his mustache, and also wearing a hat! (Burial Museum in Hochdorf, Germany)
And these are his funeral gifts!
The deceased was a man of about 40 years of age, and a height of 178 cm (according to other sources - 187 cm). He did not lie in a coffin, and was not burned, but was laid on an elegant bronze bed, similar to a sofa or a garden and park bench, 275 cm long. This was clearly a Celtic leader, since no gold jewelry was spared for him in the afterlife. Among the jewelry was a gold necklace and a bracelet worn on the right hand, and it was also supplied with amber jewelry. On his head he had a conical (well, completely Vietnamese!) Hat made of birch bark, although he himself was dressed in rich clothes. Of the weapons with him were found two daggers 42 cm long with blades of iron and bronze, in a gold scabbard and gilded handles.
Very unusually decorated shoes, isn't it?
Daggers: one bronze, the other "gold", or rather, in a gold sheath.
Drinking horn.
And this is a wagon with dishes!
But the ornamented plates of sheet gold that adorned his shoes, found here, look especially unusual. A large cauldron was also found near the bed, in which at the time of burial there was … 400 liters of honey. In addition, the burial again contained a four-wheeled cart, which contained an impressive set of bronze utensils, including drinking horns, for nine people.
There he was - a cauldron for 400 liters of honey!
After the burial was examined, the mound was dumped to its original height and diameter, and a museum was set up nearby. Moreover, when they dug a foundation pit under its foundation, they also found the remains of a Celtic village, which, apparently, was "led" by this "leader". In the exposition of the museum you can see the preserved skeleton of the deceased and all the objects found in the burial chamber, some of which have been restored. That is, having visited it, you can see exactly how this burial looked at the time of its laying.
