Le Monde | • Updated | By
Play Slideshow Go to the portfolio
The place do not really look like much on the edge of a roundabout, a stone’s throw from the sad prefabricated commercial area of Lavau (Aube). Yet this is in anticipation of new commercial construction, the researchers of the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) dig, since the fall, a princely tomb of V th century before AD, which promises to be one of the most remarkable of Celtic culture of the said period of Hallstatt (between 800 and 450 BC.).
The discovery, published Wednesday March 4, is described as “exceptional” by archaeologists, both by the size of the site and the quality of the material unearthed. And the vault, in which the search is not yet complete, contains probably new surprises.
Luxury Items
The team has already excavators unearthed objects of prestige that make the tomb of Lavau similar to those of Hochdorf (Germany) or the famous tomb of Vix, discovered in 1953. A large bronze cauldron, about one meter in diameter, finely crafted and whose four handles are adorned with horned heads of the Greek god Achelous, forms the main part of the exhumed material. “We believe that this cauldron is probably Etruscan invoice, or perhaps Greek” , says archaeologist Emilie Millet, head of the furniture.
Other prestige items , mostly from the Mediterranean world, testify to the economic and political power of the Celtic lord buried here she is twenty-five centuries. In particular, a drinking vessel of Greek manufacturing – a oinochoe – found in the cauldron is a unique piece. This black ceramic vase, used to take wine into the cauldron during the banquet, is enhanced in his foot and his lip, a gold plate.
“Even in rich Greek tombs not found such objects “, says archaeologist Dominique Garcia, a professor at the University of Aix-Marseille and president of Inrap, for whom Greek artisans may be adapted their production to the whims of the barbarian prince. The origin of the object, however, no doubt. Dionysus is represented in a banquet scene feature of the Greek world, lying under a vine face a female character. Other tableware items related to wine consumption and the Greek practice of banquet – Symposium – were also found. In particular, a silver and gold spoon it possible to filter the wine spices with which he was, at the time, blended.
Monument of about 7000 square meters
The sex of the deceased is not yet known with certainty – some of his bones exposed in the vault, but have not yet been released – but the presence of a bronze dagger calls for Prince and not, as in the tomb of Vix, for a princess. But the deceased Lavau is a man or a woman, the funerary again suggests acculturation Celtic elites of this period the cultural practices of the Mediterranean world.
On the same site, to other older graves were unearthed. Twenty urns containing ashes and splinters are much older and date back to the Bronze Age until 1400 BC These graves were included in the same monument to V th century, a vast mound of-way of about 7000 square meters, surrounded by a moat and a fence erected above the Hallstatt princely burial. A monument of several meters high which was, at the time, strongly mark the landscape. As strongly today as precast built on the BIA, but perhaps in a somewhat different way …
No comments:
Post a Comment