The discovery was made during the latest fieldwork for the Mezőkeresztes Battlefield Research Project, an archaeological investigation that has been studying the battlefield for the past decade.
Researchers were conducting surveys connected with the Battle of Mezőkeresztes, fought between 22 and 26 October 1596 during the Fifteen Years’ War, when archaeological volunteer Zoltán Vágó detected a signal indicating buried metal.
Excavation revealed a small assemblage of three bronze objects consisting of a large bronze cup and two decorated spiral arm ornaments.
Based on their form and decoration, archaeologists have dated the objects to the Late Bronze Age, approximately between the 13th and 11th centuries BC.
This means that the objects were deposited more than 3,000 years ago and roughly 2,500 years before Ottoman and Habsburg forces fought at Mezőkeresztes.
Rather than removing the individual artefacts at the site, archaeologists recovered the entire deposit in situ, preserving the objects in their original positions for controlled micro-excavation in laboratory conditions.
Depositing valuable bronze objects in vessels is a known phenomenon from the Late Bronze Age, although archaeologists say examples recovered with their original archaeological context intact are extremely rare.
Image Credit : Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum
According to the researchers, this is the first comparable assemblage from the Borsod region to be recovered and documented using micro-excavation.
Preserving the deposit intact could provide information that would normally be lost during conventional excavation.
Researchers hope that microscopic organic residues may have survived on or inside the bronze cup and accompanying objects.
Although invisible to the naked eye, laboratory analysis of these residues could potentially establish what the vessel once contained or whether it had been used for drinking or storing a particular substance before being buried.
The reason the objects were deliberately placed in the ground remains unknown.
Across Bronze Age Europe, deposits containing metal objects have been interpreted in numerous ways, ranging from the concealment of valuable possessions to the deliberate deposition of objects for ritual or ceremonial purposes.
The archaeological context of the Mezőkeresztes assemblage may therefore prove crucial in determining whether the objects were hidden for safekeeping, deposited as an offering or buried for another purpose.
The treasure was discovered as part of a much later archaeological investigation focused on one of the largest battles of the Fifteen Years’ War.
The Battle of Mezőkeresztes was fought in 1596 between forces of the Ottoman Empire and a Christian coalition led by the Habsburg monarchy and the Principality of Transylvania.
The battlefield research covers an area exceeding 100 square kilometres, with survey locations selected using historical and archival sources.
Although the project primarily focuses on reconstructing the events and landscape of the 16th-century battle, field surveys have also identified previously unknown archaeological sites and discoveries dating from other periods.
The newly discovered Bronze Age deposit is one of the earliest finds to emerge from the project.
The objects will now undergo detailed laboratory micro-excavation and analysis, which researchers hope will reveal how the artefacts were arranged, whether organic material survives and potentially what the bronze cup contained before it was placed in the ground more than three millennia ago.
Sources : Hungarian National Museum