Sunday, July 9, 2023

The Kallerup Hoard

Back in 2019, archaeologists checking a Danish site where development is planned found this wonderful little two-faced bronze figurine, which was once mounted on top of a staff. Sensing that this was the top of a larger deposit, they removed the soil beneath it as a block and took it to the lab.

Where they ran a CT scan that revealed amazing things.

This ceremonial bronze ax is quite large, 30 cm (a foot) across.

Horse-head figurines as they are currently displayed. All of this material dated to the late Bronze Age, around 1000 BC.

This stuff was back in the news recently because the Danish government decided to display it in the local museum at Thisted near the discovery spot. But in Denmark even a local museum displaying only artifacts from the neighborhood can be quite extraordinary. The Thisted museeum already displays this gold arm band, which dates to the early Iron Age, 

and Denmark's best preserved Iron Age wooden spoon.

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