Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.33254/piaz.40.1.2
The results of the excavations at the prehistoric stone mound in Drinovci with a special focus on gold finds
Tino Tomas
orcid.org/0000-0003-3372-9415
; Faculty of Humanities, University of Mostar, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
The paper presents the results of the rescue archaeological excavations at the prehistoric stone mound in Drinovci (Grude Municipality, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). The excavations documented a total of five graves that can be placed within two time horizons: the prehistoric (graves 1, 2, 5) and the medieval (graves 3, 4). Grave 1, while badly damaged, was the only one with any finds: a tendril made of spirally coiled double (“infinite”) gold wire, and a deformed specimen with the same typological characteristics in its immediate vicinity. They are the oldest known and published gold finds from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The best analogies to the gold objects from Drinovci come from the middle and early stages of the Late Bronze Age in a wider Central European area. These widely distributed objects show that this cultural region, or its local elites, participated in the already active supra-regional network of exchange and communication. Moreover, the excavations in the space between the graves found potsherds of prehistoric features, largely devoid of narrowly identifiable typological elements. The area of the excavated mound was again used as a burial site in the late Middle Ages, which is a welldocumented but unfortunately still poorly researched practice of this cultural region.
Keywords
: prehistoric stone burial mound; Bronze Age; gold finds; tendrils of spirally coiled double gold wire; archaeology in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Drinovci (Grude)
Hrčak ID:
307057
URI
Publication date:
1.8.2023.
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