Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T23:47:23.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mycenaeans in Bavaria? Amber and gold from the Bronze Age site of Bernstorf

Review products

RupertGebhard & RüdigerKrause. Bernstorf: Archäologisch-naturwissenschaftliche Analysen der Gold- und Bernsteinfunde vom Bernstorfer Berg bei Kranzberg, Oberbayern (Bernstorf-Forschungen 1; Abhandlung und Bestandskataloge der Archäologischen Staatssammlung 3; Frankfurter Archäologische Schriften 31). 2016. 319 pages, numerous colour and b&w illustrations, tables. München: Archäologische Staatssammlung; 978-3-927806-43-6 €49.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2017

Anthony Harding  and
Helen Hughes-Brock
Anthony Harding
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK (Email: a.f.harding@exeter.ac.uk)
Helen Hughes-Brock
Affiliation:
12 Richmond Road, Oxford OX1 2JJ, UK (Email: helen.hughesbrock@googlemail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In August 1998 the German archaeological world was stunned when two amateur archaeologists found decorated gold-sheet ornaments on a hill in Bavaria north of Munich, near a farm named Bernstorf, in the commune of Kranzberg. A Bronze Age fortified enclosure was known there, local amateurs having excavated it earlier in the 1990s; later, permission was granted for gravel extraction, trees were cleared and it was in this disturbed area that the gold appeared. The authorities were quickly alerted. Both the Staatssammlung in Munich (Bavarian State Archaeological Museum) and the Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (BLfD, Bavarian State Office for Monument Care) took part in inspections and, subsequently, excavations. More gold, including a ‘diadem’, appeared and, in late September 1998, perforated lumps of amber. Then in November 2000, on the edge of an area under excavation by the BLfD, came the sensational discovery of two incised pieces of amber hailed as Mycenaean.

Type
Review
Information
Antiquity , Volume 91 , Issue 359 , October 2017 , pp. 1382 - 1385
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Gebhard, R. 1999. Der Goldfund von Bernstorf. Bayerische Vorgeschichtsblätter 64: 1–18.Google Scholar
Hänsel, A. 2007. Das Bernstorf-Orakel—Die Geschichte einer langen Reise in der Bronzezeit. Hamm: Roseni.Google Scholar
Harding, A. & Hughes-Brock, H.. 1974. Amber in the Mycenaean world. Annual of the British School at Athens 69: 143–70.Google Scholar
Hood, S. 1993. Amber in Egypt, in Beck, C.W. & Bouzek, J. (ed.) Amber in archaeology: proceedings of the Second International Conference on Amber in Archaeology, Liblice 1990: 230–35. Prague: Institute of Archaeology, Czech Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Hughes-Brock, H. 2011. Exotic materials and objects sent to—and from?—the Bronze Age Aegean: some recent work and some observations, in Vianello, A. (ed.) Exotica in the prehistoric Mediterranean: 99–114. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Janko, R. 2015. Amber inscribed in Linear B from Bernstorf in Bavaria: new light on the Mycenaean kingdom of Pylos. Bayerische Vorgeschichtsblätter 80: 39–64.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. 2016. Interpreting Bronze Age trade and migration, in Kiriatzi, E. & Knappett, C. (ed.) Human mobility and technological transfer in the prehistoric Mediterranean (British School at Athens Studies in Greek Antiquity 1): 154–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316536063.011 Google Scholar
Niwiński, A. 1999. Amber in ancient Egypt, in Kosmowska-Ceranowicz, B. & Paner, H. (ed.) Investigations into amber. Proceedings of the international interdisciplinary symposium: Baltic Amber and Other Fossil Resins, 997 Urbs Gyddanycz—1997 Gdańsk, 2–6 September 1997: 115–19. Gdańsk: Muzeum Archeologiczne w Gdańsku, Muzeum Ziemi, Polska Akademia Nauk.Google Scholar
Pernicka, E. 2014a. Zur Frage der Echtheit der Bernstorfer Goldfunde, in Meller, H., Risch, R. & Pernicka, E. (ed.) Metalle der Macht. Frühes Gold und Silber. 6. Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 17.–19. Oktober 2013 in Halle (Saale): 247–56. Halle/Saale: Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte.Google Scholar
Pernicka, E. 2014b. On the authenticity of the gold finds from Bernstorf, community of Kranzberg, Freising district, Bavaria. Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte 94: 517–26.Google Scholar
Radtke, M., Reinholz, U. & Gebhard, R.. 2016. Synchrotron radiation-induced X-ray fluorescence (SRXRF) analyses of the Bernstorf gold. Archaeometry. First published online 6 December 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12294 Google Scholar
Sarpaki, A. 2001. Condiments, perfume and dye plants in Linear B: a look at the textual and archaeobotanical evidence, in Michailidou, A., with Kalogerakou, P. & Voutsa, K. (ed.) Manufacture and measurement: counting, measuring and recording craft items in early Aegean societies (Meletemata 33): 195–265. Athens: Kentron Ellenikes kai Romaïkes Arkhaiotetos, Ethnikon Idryma Erevnon.Google Scholar
Serpico, M. with White, R.. 2000. Resins, amber and bitumen, in Nicholson, P.T. & Shaw, I. (ed.) Ancient Egyptian materials and technology: 430–74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stahl, C. 2006. Mitteleuropäische Bernsteinfunde von der Frühbronzezeit bis zur Latènezeit. Ihre Verbreitung, Formgebung, Zeitstellung und Herkunft (Würzburger Studien zu Sprache und Kultur 9). Dettelbach: J.H. Röll.Google Scholar