Personal Bibliography by Dragan Božič
Citations by Dragan Božič
Citations of the scientific and professional works of Dragan Božič from 1984 to 2012
Abstrac... more Citations of the scientific and professional works of Dragan Božič from 1984 to 2012
Abstract
The cited works are ordered by category (e.g., Original scientific article), the citations by international or Slovenian publication, and the year of issue. The first citations cited in upright script indicate publications (papers, monographs, exhibition catalogues, miscellanies, lexicons etc.) edited abroad and subsequent citations in Italic script designate those edited in Slovenia. At the end of each section (international and Slovenian) the sums of the citations are given.
The single citations are as short as possible. They only include the names of the author/authors (the initial of the first name and the surname) and those data that are necessary to find the publication: the title of the book or journal, volume (for journals), place of publication (for books), and year, and finally the page number on which the citation appears, and also the footnote number where applicable.
The aim of this list is not only to show the number of citations of the works that I have produced, but also to inform other researchers working on related subjects of the major part of the publications, which have followed the subjects of my research and referred to it. That means that this list also represents a useful bibliography of the themes discussed in my works.
For example, after the reference to my paper on the astragal belts (Kasnolatenski astragalni pojasevi tipa Beograd), published in Belgrade in 1982, you will find 34 additional works, published from 1984 to 2011 primarily in Romania, Croatia and Serbia, but also in France, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, Macedonia, and Hungary, where other examples of this type of belt were published or this type was discussed.
I am very well aware that the list is far from being complete. Therefore I shall be grateful to all those colleagues who will send me information on the citations not yet included in the list.
Ljubljana, the 28th November 2013 Dragan Božič
Books by Dragan Božič
The book contains a presentation of all preserved archaeological finds discovered in 1890 in Novo... more The book contains a presentation of all preserved archaeological finds discovered in 1890 in Novo mesto on part of a road that until 1993 was the initial part of Ljubljanska cesta (Ljubljana road) and from then on the beginning of Seidlova cesta (Seidl's road), and of finds excavated in 1902 in the area of Okrajno glavarstvo (District board). The monograph also includes studies of some types of Late La Tène fibulae and a study on the relative chronology of the Late La Tène period.
The author suggests for the cemetery, which till now appeared in the literature under the name Beletov vrt, a new name "Beletov vrt cemetery with its surroundings". It is composed of three main (Ljubljanska cesta, Okrajno glavarstvo and Beletov vrt) and two smaller parts (Hiša Vojska and Skabernetov vrt). The chapter on the history of research, including the transcriptions of all important written sources from the time before World War I, is devoted to this cemetery, as well as the chapter on its chronology.
In the catalogue, on the plates and on some of the figures, the finds from the Ljubljanska cesta and Okrajno glavarstvo areas are presented; they are kept in the prehistoric and Roman collections as well as in the Coin Cabinet of the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana.
The studies of fibulae are devoted to the variants of the Nauheim type, appearing on the sites of the Mokronog Group in central and eastern Slovenia, to the Nova vas type fibulae and to the arched fibulae of the Idrija Ia type.
A special chapter is devoted to the relative chronology of the Late La Tène period in the south-eastern Alpine area (the Mokronog Group and Magdalensberg in the Austrian Carinthia) and in northern Italy (Lombardy and the Veneto).
2008, Katalogi in monografije 39, 240 pages, 91 colour and b-w photos, drawings, tables and maps, 33 plates, 24 x 32,8 cm, hardcover, ISBN 978-961-6169-60-8. Price: 45 €
The book describes the events in the 100 years after the fall of the meteorite near the Avče vill... more The book describes the events in the 100 years after the fall of the meteorite near the Avče village in the Soča Valley.
The expert monograph on the first Slovene meteorite acquaints us with meteorites in general and specifically with the fall of the iron-nickel meteorite near the Avče village in the Soča Valley (western Slovenia) on March 31st 1908, and its subsequent history until 2008.
The Avče meteorite was almost completely forgotten in Slovenia until 2007. The authors nevertheless succeeded in gathering in a relatively short time a surprisingly rich collection of texts and illustrations.
This meteorite was mentioned in only three Slovene publications in the 100 years since its fall in 1908: in a textbook by Leopold Poljanec a professor in Maribor (Mineralogy and Geology, Celovec 1909), in an article by Rajko Pavlovec On the meteorites in our country (Življenje in tehnika 12, 1962, p. 392) and in an article by Milan Ilić entitled Thousand pieces fallen from the space (Delo 43, 2001, no. 134, p. 12).
Especially valuable are the numerous newspaper notices from April 1908, completely unknown until now, and the testimonies of the locals.
Thanks to the testimony of the grandson of the owner of the land parcel where the meteorite fell, the exact place of its fall is known, which is only a half hour walk from the village.
The wrong coordinates still appear in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database, which mark a site near the Neblo village in Goriška Brda on the right bank of the Soča river as the place of the fall (http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/metbull.php).
Both articles on the Avče meteorite, written in German by Friedrich Martin Berwerth, the director of the Mineralogical-Petrographic Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, and published in 1908 (Über den Niederfall eines Eisenmeteoriten bei Avče im Isonzotale) and in 1909 (Ein österreichisches Meteoreisen), are reproduced and translated into Slovene, as is the chapter in V. F. Buchwald's Handbook of iron meteorites (1975: Avče, Slovenia, Yugoslavia).
The bibliography shows that in the long period from 1908 to 2007, the Avče meteorite was mentioned or presented in 28 bibliographic units, published almost entirely outside Slovenia, and in the years 2007 and 2008 it was mentioned in 24 bibliographic units, published almost entirely in Slovenia.
Papers by Dragan Božič
O meteorskem zlatu s Kobilnika pri Tolminu / On the meteoritical gold from Kobilnik near Tolmin – Izvleček / Abstract
Neznani in zamolčani Linhart
Clanek o odkritju Linhartovega portreta in o zapostavljanju prvega slovenskega dramatika v srednj... more Clanek o odkritju Linhartovega portreta in o zapostavljanju prvega slovenskega dramatika v srednjesolskih berilih v 19. stoletju.
Arheološki vestnik, 2018
The contribution discusses the burial of a woman (Grave 20) in Tumulus IV at the Znančeve njive c... more The contribution discusses the burial of a woman (Grave 20) in Tumulus IV at the Znančeve njive cemetery in Novo mesto, SE Slovenia. It was excavated in 1968 and found to contain a pair of simple gold wire earrings, a necklace of amber beads, fragments of glass beads, two decorated hollow spiral bracelets of thick sheet bronze, two ribbed bronze anklets and three embossed kernoi.
Most of the goods are of types that only rarely occur in the graves of the Dolenjska Hallstatt group: the earrings have only few close parallels of bronze, large sub-spherical amber beads are rare, as are ceramic kernoi, while hollow bracelets of thick sheet bronze are only slightly more numerous. The grave also stands apart in that the goods are of different, in some cases considerably different dates.
This is also the main cause for the varying dating of the burial. The deceased woman was indeed buried with earrings and bracelets dating to the Stična 2 phase, but they are believed to represent heirlooms and it is the amber necklace and embossed kernoi that suggest the date of the interment in the Certosa Fibulae phase.
The contribution also presents several grave groups with goods characteristic of two successive phases. The author sees these burials as evidence of a period of transition, during which new forms gradually replaced the old ones. He also calls attention to embossed ware that was popular in the Certosa and Negova phases.
Published in: I. Drnić (ed.), Segestika i Siscija – od ruba imperija do provincijskog središta / Segestica and Siscia – from the periphery of the empire to a provincial center, Katalozi i monografije Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu 16 (Zagreb 2018) 131–150., 2018
Two exceptional Dacian horse bits are exhibited in the City Museum of Sisak. The second one was f... more Two exceptional Dacian horse bits are exhibited in the City Museum of Sisak. The second one was found in the bed of the River Kupa as most likely was the first one. Both of them have an iron mouthpiece, but all the other components are made of copper alloy. Because of the typical mouthpieces, which are rather thick and have a square cross-section, and because of the barshaped cheek-pieces with two rectangular loops in the middle and enlarged ends (the first bit), and the wheel-shaped cheekpieces with three spikes on the inner side (the second bit) they undoubtedly belong to Dacian bits.
The earliest bits of this type are made of iron. They date to LT D1 and are known mostly from Roumania, and outside it at Mala Kopanja in the Ukraine and at Židovar in the Serbian part of Banat. The first of the two bits from Sisak presents a special form in the class of the Magdalensberg variant of Dacian bits. It might have been produced in the Augustan period. The second bit belongs to a new variant of Dacian bits, called “the Sisak variant”, and probably dates to the Early Imperial period. Two other Dacian bits, both of iron, are known in the territory of Croatia. They were found with a complete horse skeleton and 27 rare copper alloy yoke ornaments sometime before 1904 in the vicinity of Orešac near Virovitica in the Drava Valley and can be dated to LT D2.
In 2010, seven years ago, the second volume of the publication of the Hallstatt period barrows fr... more In 2010, seven years ago, the second volume of the publication of the Hallstatt period barrows from Stična, the studies, was published in Ljubljana by the National Museum of Slovenia (Narodni muzej Slovenije): Stična II/2, Katalogi in monografije 38. The first volume, the catalogue, appeared in 2006: Stična II/1, Katalogi in monografije 37. The main chapters in the second volume were written by Stane Gabrovec (born in 1920) and Biba Teržan (born in 1947), both professors at the University of Ljubljana and ordinary members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
The chapter by Gabrovec (pp. 7-60) gives an overview dealing first with the history of research of tumulus 48, tumulus 5 and some others (especially those excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg), as well as describing the topography of the tumulus cemetery of Stična. In the second part of this chapter Gabrovec writes about the burial rite, stratigraphy and chronology of barrow 48. For several reasons everyone expected that his study would provide a clear picture of the interments in tumulus 48, which contained almost 200 graves. It was expected that he would provide correct dates for all the datable graves, with a detailed analysis of the burial rite and the grave architecture (e. g. the dimensions of the grave pits) and describe in detail the range of objects found in the graves: fibulae, weapons, belt fittings, ring ornaments, glass and amber beads, ceramics and bronze vessels.
We should not forget that barrow 48 is of crucial importance for understanding the evolution of the Dolenjska group of the Hallstatt culture from the 7th to the 5th centuries BC, because the grave groups from Magdalenska gora and Stična in the Mecklenburg Collection are mixed and useless for scientific research, and because the hundreds of graves excavated before 1914, mostly by Jernej Pečnik and Ferdinand Schulz for the museums in Ljubljana and in Vienna at different sites of the Dolenjska group, are often not reliable at all.
Gabrovec’s first chronology of the Dolenjska group was already created in 1963. The last two phases, the Certosa and Negova phases, were convincingly subdivided into two sub-phases in 1976 by his student Biba Teržan in her study of the Certosa type fibulae. In the last extensive presentation of this group, published in 1987 in volume 5 of The Prehistory of Yugoslav Lands (Praistorija jugoslavenskih zemalja), Gabrovec devoted a lot of space to the chronology. He divided the whole time span of the Dolenjska group into five main phases: Podzemelj, Stična, Serpentine, Certosa and Negova. The main types of each of these phases were presented separately in six figures. If we take, for example, fig. 4 on p. 57 illustrating objects of the Serpentine phase (stupanj zmijolikih fibula), there are about one third which are in reality earlier, from the Stična phase, or later, from the Certosa phase. Earlier are the serpentine fibula no. 8 (cf. grave 48/27 from Stična) and the bracelet no. 14 (a thick solid bracelet with overlapping tapering ends, which is decorated with groups of transverse incisions or narrow ribs). To the types, which appear only in the Certosa phase and not before, belong the double-crested helmet, the pottery with indented walls (nos. 17, 18 and 21), the footed vase of type 10 after Dular (no. 20), and as well very probably the decorated rectangular bronze belt plate no. 16. The rest of the fibulae (nos. 6, 7, 9-13: serpentine fibulae with a saddle-shaped bow, leech fibulae, serpentine fibulae with wings, fibulae with a ribbed bow and a long foot, serpentine fibulae with plates, and band bow fibulae), the spiral band earrings (no. 12), the ribbed bracelets and anklets with overlapping tapering ends (no. 13) and the red-and-black vessels (nos. 22 and 23: the footed vase of type 9 after Dular and the situla with horizontal ribs) are without any doubt typical of the Serpentine phase!
In his study from 2010 Gabrovec ascribed a limited number of graves from barrow 48 to four stratigraphic and chronological phases: I, II, III and IV (pp. 46 and 55-56, fig. 21 on p. 40 and fig. 23 on p. 50).
Among the graves of phase I appears grave 19-22, a supposed central chamber, which did not exist and was a pure fabrication by Biba Teržan (cf. https://www.academia.edu/29260635 and https://www.academia.edu/11505808, Abstract). Gabrovec assigned to phase II not only graves of the Stična 2 phase, but also several graves of the following Serpentine phase (e. g. nos. 136, 147 and 151). Similarly, he ascribed to phase III not only graves of the Serpentine phase, but also one grave of the Stična 2 phase (no. 74) and two from the Certosa phase (nos. 85 and 99). Finally, in his list of graves of phase IV, not only graves from the Certosa phase, but also some of the preceding Serpentine phase appear (e.g. nos. 44 and 171). That means that graves from the Serpentine phase with their typical inventory (serpentine, leech and band bow fibulae, ribbed bracelets and anklets with overlapping tapering ends, spiral band earrings, red-and-black pottery) were ascribed by him to three chronological phases, which is completely wrong.
Especially poor is his presentation of the last phase IV. Although he first assigned to it no less than 97 graves (p. 44) and then (p. 55) about 19 graves with fibulae (13 serpentine, 19 Certosa, two animal-shaped and one three-knobbed), in the table on fig. 21 with typical graves of the four chronological phases (I-IV) there are only 10 graves of phase IV (cf. p. 47, Mit Beginn). They are all female and only two contain fibulae (nos. 8 and 36). All male graves of the Certosa phase and almost all graves with fibulae of this phase have simply disappeared!!?
To emend this false picture, I have written a study for the journal Prilozi 33, published by the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb, in which I ascribed to Phase IV (= Certosa phase) 36 graves and presented also 36 metal (iron and bronze), glass, amber and pottery objects, which are typical for it.
The chapter by Gabrovec on the Hallstatt barrows from Stična, especially the sub-chapter on the chronology (pp. 46-55), is unfortunately, contrary to expectation not a scientific work. Had its author been a student of archaeology, in no way could he get a positive mark for it.
The publication of the Stična II/2 volume was made possible by Biba Teržan, the main co-author, and by the two reviewers, Janez Dular and Mitja Guštin. They are all students of Gabrovec and they all got the prize of the Slovenian Archaeological Society for their life’s work. This prize is given to those archaeologists, who contributed through their main achievements to the development of Slovenian archaeology and to the growth of its reputation at home and abroad. Stična II/2 volume has thrown a shadow on the work of Gabrovec in 2010, when the late professor reached 90 years. The duty of Teržan, Dular and Guštin was simply to emend it very much or not to include it in the publication. As a member of the editorial board I had no possibility to react, because the chief and responsible editor Peter Turk, who did his job in an extremely poor way, did not allow sight of the submitted texts and illustrations to three members of it (Istenič, Knific and me). The volume with studies on the Stična Hallstatt barrows (Stična II/2) has very much diminished the reputation not only of the publisher (The National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana), but also of the whole of Slovenian Early Iron Age archaeology.
The abstract was kindly proof read by John Collis from the University of Sheffield (UK).
Avče in the Soča Valley, May 2, 2017 (Tuesday)
English
The author of this contribution suggests combining two groups of bronze fibulae of Middle... more English
The author of this contribution suggests combining two groups of bronze fibulae of Middle La Tène construction under the name “fibulae of the Zvonimirovo type”. For the typologically most closely related variants a, b and c1, closed grave groups from Zvonimirovo provide us with a date of LT C2. Variant c2, however, seems to date to LT D1.
Deutsch
Der Verfasser dieses Beitrags schlägt die Vereinigung zweier Gruppen von Bronzefibeln vom Mittellatèneschema unter der Bezeichnung „Fibeln vom Typ Zvonimirovo“ vor. Während uns die sicheren Grabverbände aus Zvonimirovo für die typologisch aufs Engste verwandten Varianten a, b und c1 eine Datierung in die Stufe LT C2 liefern, scheint Variante c2 eher in die Stufe LT D1 zu datieren.
Slovenščina
Pisec predlaga združitev dveh skupin bronastih fibul srednjelatenske sheme pod oznako »fibule vrste Zvonimirovo«. Zanesljive grobne celote iz Zvonimirova v hrvaškem Podravju dokazujejo datacijo med seboj zelo sorodnih različic a, b in c1 v stopnjo LT C2. Različica c2 pa sodi verjetno v stopnjo LT D1.
Soklič je v muzeju razlagau: »To je slika na les, Apolonij se klanja Kleopatri, 1624, veste, tule... more Soklič je v muzeju razlagau: »To je slika na les, Apolonij se klanja Kleopatri, 1624, veste, tule v vitrini imamo iz ilirskih grobou sulico, tule je glinasta peč (Je še zdej tam.), tu v škafu pa imam ilirskega poglavarja (Je blo na pou notər peska pa mal ene koščice ožgane.) … to je ilirski poglavar.« No in drugič so pa spet prišli turisti in je spet reko: »No, vite, gospoda moja, tu not so eni skrivni predalčki. Tu not je dama mela nakit, da ga roparji niso našli. To je pa špacirštok -to je za sablo.« In jo je potegno vən pa takole malo demonstrirau: »No, vite, gospoda moja, tu mam pa ilirskega poglavarja …« Je pa tja pogledo, pa škafa ni blo več. In, seveda, je šla gospodinja na dopust, je pa ena druga prəšla. »Barbara!!« jo je klicau, »poslušte, ke pa je ta škaf?« »O, gospod dekan, vete kaj (Je bla pa pedantna pa prah pobrisala vse …), to sn pa jəz dol na gnojski kup nesla, sn misla, da je kako smetje not!« »No, vite, gospoda moja, tako je moj ilirski poglavar ta zadnjo pot na smetišču našu!« (Verdinek 2002, 188-189)
Soklič je v muzeju razlagau: »To je slika na les, Apolonij se klanja Kleopatri, 1624, veste, tule... more Soklič je v muzeju razlagau: »To je slika na les, Apolonij se klanja Kleopatri, 1624, veste, tule v vitrini imamo iz ilirskih grobou sulico, tule je glinasta peč (Je še zdej tam.), tu v škafu pa imam ilirskega poglavarja (Je blo na pou notər peska pa mal ene koščice ožgane.) … to je ilirski poglavar.« No in drugič so pa spet prišli turisti in je spet reko: »No, vite, gospoda moja, tu not so eni skrivni predalčki. Tu not je dama mela nakit, da ga roparji niso našli. To je pa špacirštok -to je za sablo.« In jo je potegno vən pa takole malo demonstrirau: »No, vite, gospoda moja, tu mam pa ilirskega poglavarja …« Je pa tja pogledo, pa škafa ni blo več. In, seveda, je šla gospodinja na dopust, je pa ena druga prəšla. »Barbara!!« jo je klicau, »poslušte, ke pa je ta škaf?« »O, gospod dekan, vete kaj (Je bla pa pedantna pa prah pobrisala vse …), to sn pa jəz dol na gnojski kup nesla, sn misla, da je kako smetje not!« »No, vite, gospoda moja, tako je moj ilirski poglavar ta zadnjo pot na smetišču našu!« (Verdinek 2002, 188-189)
The author assigns ten fibulae, distributed only in Friuli and in the Soča region, to a new type ... more The author assigns ten fibulae, distributed only in Friuli and in the Soča region, to a new type of Middle La Tène construction fibulae, named by him the “San Floriano type.” Until now different authors have ascribed them to various types, e.g. the Kastav and Picugi types of fibulae. Four of them are of silver, the rest are bronze. The reverted foot is decorated with three knobs, between which there are usually collars. The spring consists of ten or twelve coils made of round wire. The cord is wrapped around the bow from the inside. The type can be dated to the LT D1 phase and subdivided into variant A with a semi-oval bow of circular cross-section, variant B with a knob on the bow, and variant C with a richly decorated flat bow.
L’autore attribuisce dieci fibule, diffuse solamente in Friuli e nell’Isontino, a un nuovo tipo delle fibule dello schema medio La Tène, denominato da lui “tipo San Floriano”. Vari autori le hanno attribuite finora a tipi diversi, per esempio Kastav e Picugi. Quattro di esse sono in argento, il resto è in bronzo. La staffa ripiegata è decorata da tre globetti, tra i cui ci sono abitualmente delle costolature. La molla è composta di dieci o dodici avvolgimenti, fatti da un filo a
sezione circolare. La corda è avvolta attorno all’arco dall’interno verso esterno. Il tipo può essere datato in fase LT D1 e suddiviso in variante A con un arco semiovale dalla sezione circolare, in variante B con un globetto sull’arco e in variante C con un arco appiattito e riccamente decorato.
Ch. Gutjahr, G. Tiefengraber (eds.), Beiträge zur Hallstattzeit am Rande der Südostalpen. Akten des 2. Internationalen Symposiums am 10. und 11. Juni 2010 in Wildon (Steiermark/Österreich), Internationale Archäologie - Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Symposium, Tagung, Kongress 19
"Neither the archaeologists who dealt with the Iapodic cemeteries in the Una Valley in Bosnia and... more "Neither the archaeologists who dealt with the Iapodic cemeteries in the Una Valley in Bosnia and Herzegovina nor those who studied Certosa fibulae have until now paid attention to the fact that almost all bronze Certosa fibulae of variant VII f from Jezerine in Pritoka and from Ribić lack the spring and pin. These are not preserved because they were of iron, like the springs and pins of bronze boat fibulae for example, that are typical for phase Stična 1 of the Dolenjska group of Hallstatt culture.
The appearance of late Certosa fibulae of variant VII f and of types X, XI/XII and XII with a bronze bow and foot and an iron spring and pin is limited to the territories of the Iapodes and the Colapiani in the regions of the Una Valley, Lika in Croatia, and the central and southern parts of Bela krajina in Slovenia. In these territories other two-part late Certosa fibulae appear along with the late Certosa fibulae with a two-part bronze-and-iron construction, but the spring and pin are made of bronze and were attached to the bow in different ways.
The two-part late Certosa fibulae with a bronze spring and pin are also known outside these territories, especially in the Notranjska, Kras, Friuli and Carnia regions. On the other hand exclusively one-part late Certosa fibulae are known from some large Hallstatt period cemeteries, like Magdalenska gora near Šmarje-Sap in Dolenjska and Most na Soči in the Soča Valley
No less than ten grave groups from Magdalenska gora, excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg and published in 1978 by Hugh Hencken, contain two-part late Certosa fibulae with a bronze-and-iron or a bronze-and-bronze construction. Since such fibulae are completely missing among the other grave finds from this site, kept in the museums of Ljubljana and Vienna, but are quite common in the large cemetery of Golek pri Vinici, also excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg, it is evident that they originate from Golek pri Vinici and were only later added to the grave groups from Magdalenska gora. The Golek pri Vinici Late Hallstatt-La Tène cemetery is almost entirely unpublished, but color photos of the finds and the basic information on them are available in the online collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, MA (USA): http://pmem.unix.fas.harvard.edu:8080/peabody/.
The presence of Certosa fibulae in graves of Magdalenska gora is known from Gustav Goldberg’s original notes. Thus, the appearance of two-part Certosa fibulae from Golek pri Vinici in the grave groups from Magdalenska gora means that those Certosa fibulae, which were originally found in them, were subsequently added to other graves from this and possibly other sites, excavated by the Duchess (Stična, Vače, Golek pri Vinici, etc.). The case of two-part late Certosa fibulae in the graves of the Mecklenburg Collection represents further proof that the grave groups from Magdalenska gora and Stična, excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg and uncritically published by Hugh Hencken and Peter Wells, are mixed to a very high degree and therefore not appropriate for serious scientific research.
"
The excavator Jernej Pečnik excavated hundreds of graves from the Iron Age and the Roman period f... more The excavator Jernej Pečnik excavated hundreds of graves from the Iron Age and the Roman period for the Regional Museum for Carniola in Ljubljana at the end of the 19th century at numerous sites in Dolenjska and Bela krajina. He excavated at the important Iron Age site of Vače near Litija mostly in 1889. This site produced extremely well preserved finds. In the forest of Terezija Poljanec he found a skeleton of a warrior with a double-crested helmet. Since the finds from Vače, like those from other sites, were inventoried typologically by Alfons Müllner, curator of the Regional Museum for Carniola, they appear as single finds with unknown grave provenance in the France Stare’s 1955 catalogue of the Hallstatt grave finds from Vače, kept in the National Museum in Ljubljana.
In 1982 Davorin Vuga published a ground plan of the helmet grave from 1889, drawn by Pečnik's son Franc, and ascribed to it the bronze double-crested helmet and the bronze belt plate decorated with six animals. Several unpublished manuscripts and some reports published soon after the discovery in Vienna and in Ljubljana, not known to Stare, but collected by the author mostly before 1979, made it possible to also assign a pair of richly decorated iron spearheads to the helmet grave, as well as two rectangular belt attachments, a conical iron rod, and probably also two belt loops. Andrej Preložnik finally succeeded in determining the right pair of bronze crossbow Certosa fibulae.
G. Tiefengraber, B. Kavur, A. Gaspari (eds.), Keltske študije II. Studies in Celtic Archaeology. Papers in honour of Mitja Guštin. Protohistoire européenne 11, Montagnac,, 47-64., 2009
Three newly discovered bronze objects with remains of pre-Roman inscriptions are discussed in the... more Three newly discovered bronze objects with remains of pre-Roman inscriptions are discussed in the paper. The formal characteristics of the situla from Grad near Reka and of the situla fragment from a site in Posočje (Soča river basin) are similar to the Veneto and Trentino situlae of the 4th century BC. The fragmented bronze plaque from Gradič above Kobarid is probably part of a votive inscription. While the situla from Grad near Reka is functionally a cremation urn, the situla fragment from the site in Posočje, as well as the bronze plaque fragment from Gradič above Kobarid were most probably discovered within the votive contexts.
Three double-crested helmets were discovered in the Hallstatt period cemeteries around Vače. All ... more Three double-crested helmets were discovered in the Hallstatt period cemeteries around Vače. All three were lying in rich warrior graves. The first of these, discovered in August 1881, also contained the Vače Situla, found later. The excavator Jernej Pečnik succeeded in finding the third grave in August 1889.
In this paper we present the second grave. It was found by France Peruci, a teacher from Vače, on December 7, 1887.
The reconstruction of the find circumstances and the grave group is enabled by numerous written sources. Near the skel¬eton, in addition to the helmet, an iron socketed axe, a leather strap, two bronze, and two pottery vessels were found. A hollow bronze bracelet was found on one arm. Next to the skeleton there was a horse skeleton without a skull, on which an iron Scythian bit and four bronze strap-distributors were found. When Ignacij Hribar, the owner of the field, learned about the rich finds, he chased Peruci away and continued to excavate by himself. One fathom from the horse skeleton its skull was found along with two iron spearheads, a bronze belt plate, an iron knife, four iron rings with a loop and an iron bell, similar to the Scythian ones.
All three graves from Vače with a double-crested helmet can be dated to the later part of the Certosa phase.
The Vače Situla was discovered in March 1882 by Janez Grilc, a peasant boy from Klenik near Vače.... more The Vače Situla was discovered in March 1882 by Janez Grilc, a peasant boy from Klenik near Vače. It was not found in the Nad Lazom fallow, as has appeared in the literature since 1981, but in the Ronkarjeve drage fallow. According to Dragotin Dežman's 1883 report, a fragmented hollow bronze spiral bracelet was discovered next to the situla. Several unpublished manuscripts, written in 1882 and kept in the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, provide testimony that the situla and the bracelet belonged to a warrior grave, excavated on August 11, 1881. It also contained a double-crested helmet, two spearheads, a socketed axe, a rectangular belt plate, a bone cylinder and a spindle whorl.
The Vače Situla was discovered in March 1882 by a peasant boy Janez Grilc from Klenik near Vače. ... more The Vače Situla was discovered in March 1882 by a peasant boy Janez Grilc from Klenik near Vače. It was found in the fallow Reber. According to the data in the study of the curator of the Regional Museum of Carniola in Ljubljana, Dragotin Dežman, printed in 1883, next to it a fragmented bronze spiral hollow bracelet was discovered. Several unpublished manuscripts, written in 1882 and kept in the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, testimony that the situla and the bracelet belonged to a warrior grave, excavated by Ferdinand Schulz on 11th August 1881. It contained also a bronze double-crested helmet, two iron spearheads, an iron socketed axe, an undecorated bronze rectangular belt plate, a decorated bone cylinder and a spindle whorl. The chronological analysis of the finds showed that the first part of the grave inventory, kept in Vienna (weapons, the belt plate, the cylinder and the spindle whorl), was contemporaneous with the situla and the spiral bracelet, kept in Ljubljana. The reconstructed grave group thus can be dated to the later part of the Certosa phase.
A richly illustrated version of the paper, published in the supplement Znanost (Science) of the d... more A richly illustrated version of the paper, published in the supplement Znanost (Science) of the daily Delo (Work) from the 19th September 2013, page 14.
We have known since 1883 that Janez Grilc, a peasant boy from Klenik near Vače not far from Litija in the Sava Valley (Slovenia), found a fragment of a bronze hollow spiral bracelet next to the Vače situla. Considering the graves from Magdalenska gora near Šmarje-Sap, Dolenjske Toplice and Novo mesto, all three sites lying in the Dolenjska region, which contained related bronze situlae, we would expect that if the situla belonged to a man we would also find associated weapons and in case the situla belonged to a woman, we would expect more jewellery. The only reasonable explanation for the absence of other objects in the grave is that Grilc only found the remains of the objects deposited in the grave with the Vače situla. This explanation is confirmed by some unpublished manuscripts, kept in the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, which testify that the situla lay in a grave of a young warrior, not entirely excavated on the 11th of August, 1881. This grave was first published in 1883 in Vienna by Ferdinand von Hochstetter in a study presenting the newest Hallstatt period grave finds from Vače (German Watsch) and Šmarjeta (German St. Margarethen). In the same year the curator of the Regional Museum of Carniola in Ljubljana Dragotin Dežman alias Karl Deschmann in another journal of Vienna presented the Vače situla.
The warrior possessed a double-crested helmet, two spearheads with a facetted socket, a socketed axe, an undecorated rectangular belt plate, a spindle-whorl and a decorated hollow bone cylinder in addition to the situla and the hollow bracelet. In the inventory book 4 of the Prehistoric Department it is stated: “Zu diesem Skelete gehört auch die im Frühjahre 1882, knapp neben der Fundstelle des Helmes, ausgegrabene getriebene Situla, im Laibacher Museum (aus Bronze).” Only the skull of the relatively well preserved skeleton was brought to the Natural History Museum in Vienna. It is still preserved in the anthropological collection of the Department of Anthropology and now bears the inventory number 5050.
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Personal Bibliography by Dragan Božič
Citations by Dragan Božič
Abstract
The cited works are ordered by category (e.g., Original scientific article), the citations by international or Slovenian publication, and the year of issue. The first citations cited in upright script indicate publications (papers, monographs, exhibition catalogues, miscellanies, lexicons etc.) edited abroad and subsequent citations in Italic script designate those edited in Slovenia. At the end of each section (international and Slovenian) the sums of the citations are given.
The single citations are as short as possible. They only include the names of the author/authors (the initial of the first name and the surname) and those data that are necessary to find the publication: the title of the book or journal, volume (for journals), place of publication (for books), and year, and finally the page number on which the citation appears, and also the footnote number where applicable.
The aim of this list is not only to show the number of citations of the works that I have produced, but also to inform other researchers working on related subjects of the major part of the publications, which have followed the subjects of my research and referred to it. That means that this list also represents a useful bibliography of the themes discussed in my works.
For example, after the reference to my paper on the astragal belts (Kasnolatenski astragalni pojasevi tipa Beograd), published in Belgrade in 1982, you will find 34 additional works, published from 1984 to 2011 primarily in Romania, Croatia and Serbia, but also in France, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, Macedonia, and Hungary, where other examples of this type of belt were published or this type was discussed.
I am very well aware that the list is far from being complete. Therefore I shall be grateful to all those colleagues who will send me information on the citations not yet included in the list.
Ljubljana, the 28th November 2013 Dragan Božič
Books by Dragan Božič
The author suggests for the cemetery, which till now appeared in the literature under the name Beletov vrt, a new name "Beletov vrt cemetery with its surroundings". It is composed of three main (Ljubljanska cesta, Okrajno glavarstvo and Beletov vrt) and two smaller parts (Hiša Vojska and Skabernetov vrt). The chapter on the history of research, including the transcriptions of all important written sources from the time before World War I, is devoted to this cemetery, as well as the chapter on its chronology.
In the catalogue, on the plates and on some of the figures, the finds from the Ljubljanska cesta and Okrajno glavarstvo areas are presented; they are kept in the prehistoric and Roman collections as well as in the Coin Cabinet of the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana.
The studies of fibulae are devoted to the variants of the Nauheim type, appearing on the sites of the Mokronog Group in central and eastern Slovenia, to the Nova vas type fibulae and to the arched fibulae of the Idrija Ia type.
A special chapter is devoted to the relative chronology of the Late La Tène period in the south-eastern Alpine area (the Mokronog Group and Magdalensberg in the Austrian Carinthia) and in northern Italy (Lombardy and the Veneto).
2008, Katalogi in monografije 39, 240 pages, 91 colour and b-w photos, drawings, tables and maps, 33 plates, 24 x 32,8 cm, hardcover, ISBN 978-961-6169-60-8. Price: 45 €
The expert monograph on the first Slovene meteorite acquaints us with meteorites in general and specifically with the fall of the iron-nickel meteorite near the Avče village in the Soča Valley (western Slovenia) on March 31st 1908, and its subsequent history until 2008.
The Avče meteorite was almost completely forgotten in Slovenia until 2007. The authors nevertheless succeeded in gathering in a relatively short time a surprisingly rich collection of texts and illustrations.
This meteorite was mentioned in only three Slovene publications in the 100 years since its fall in 1908: in a textbook by Leopold Poljanec a professor in Maribor (Mineralogy and Geology, Celovec 1909), in an article by Rajko Pavlovec On the meteorites in our country (Življenje in tehnika 12, 1962, p. 392) and in an article by Milan Ilić entitled Thousand pieces fallen from the space (Delo 43, 2001, no. 134, p. 12).
Especially valuable are the numerous newspaper notices from April 1908, completely unknown until now, and the testimonies of the locals.
Thanks to the testimony of the grandson of the owner of the land parcel where the meteorite fell, the exact place of its fall is known, which is only a half hour walk from the village.
The wrong coordinates still appear in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database, which mark a site near the Neblo village in Goriška Brda on the right bank of the Soča river as the place of the fall (http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/metbull.php).
Both articles on the Avče meteorite, written in German by Friedrich Martin Berwerth, the director of the Mineralogical-Petrographic Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, and published in 1908 (Über den Niederfall eines Eisenmeteoriten bei Avče im Isonzotale) and in 1909 (Ein österreichisches Meteoreisen), are reproduced and translated into Slovene, as is the chapter in V. F. Buchwald's Handbook of iron meteorites (1975: Avče, Slovenia, Yugoslavia).
The bibliography shows that in the long period from 1908 to 2007, the Avče meteorite was mentioned or presented in 28 bibliographic units, published almost entirely outside Slovenia, and in the years 2007 and 2008 it was mentioned in 24 bibliographic units, published almost entirely in Slovenia.
Papers by Dragan Božič
Most of the goods are of types that only rarely occur in the graves of the Dolenjska Hallstatt group: the earrings have only few close parallels of bronze, large sub-spherical amber beads are rare, as are ceramic kernoi, while hollow bracelets of thick sheet bronze are only slightly more numerous. The grave also stands apart in that the goods are of different, in some cases considerably different dates.
This is also the main cause for the varying dating of the burial. The deceased woman was indeed buried with earrings and bracelets dating to the Stična 2 phase, but they are believed to represent heirlooms and it is the amber necklace and embossed kernoi that suggest the date of the interment in the Certosa Fibulae phase.
The contribution also presents several grave groups with goods characteristic of two successive phases. The author sees these burials as evidence of a period of transition, during which new forms gradually replaced the old ones. He also calls attention to embossed ware that was popular in the Certosa and Negova phases.
The earliest bits of this type are made of iron. They date to LT D1 and are known mostly from Roumania, and outside it at Mala Kopanja in the Ukraine and at Židovar in the Serbian part of Banat. The first of the two bits from Sisak presents a special form in the class of the Magdalensberg variant of Dacian bits. It might have been produced in the Augustan period. The second bit belongs to a new variant of Dacian bits, called “the Sisak variant”, and probably dates to the Early Imperial period. Two other Dacian bits, both of iron, are known in the territory of Croatia. They were found with a complete horse skeleton and 27 rare copper alloy yoke ornaments sometime before 1904 in the vicinity of Orešac near Virovitica in the Drava Valley and can be dated to LT D2.
The chapter by Gabrovec (pp. 7-60) gives an overview dealing first with the history of research of tumulus 48, tumulus 5 and some others (especially those excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg), as well as describing the topography of the tumulus cemetery of Stična. In the second part of this chapter Gabrovec writes about the burial rite, stratigraphy and chronology of barrow 48. For several reasons everyone expected that his study would provide a clear picture of the interments in tumulus 48, which contained almost 200 graves. It was expected that he would provide correct dates for all the datable graves, with a detailed analysis of the burial rite and the grave architecture (e. g. the dimensions of the grave pits) and describe in detail the range of objects found in the graves: fibulae, weapons, belt fittings, ring ornaments, glass and amber beads, ceramics and bronze vessels.
We should not forget that barrow 48 is of crucial importance for understanding the evolution of the Dolenjska group of the Hallstatt culture from the 7th to the 5th centuries BC, because the grave groups from Magdalenska gora and Stična in the Mecklenburg Collection are mixed and useless for scientific research, and because the hundreds of graves excavated before 1914, mostly by Jernej Pečnik and Ferdinand Schulz for the museums in Ljubljana and in Vienna at different sites of the Dolenjska group, are often not reliable at all.
Gabrovec’s first chronology of the Dolenjska group was already created in 1963. The last two phases, the Certosa and Negova phases, were convincingly subdivided into two sub-phases in 1976 by his student Biba Teržan in her study of the Certosa type fibulae. In the last extensive presentation of this group, published in 1987 in volume 5 of The Prehistory of Yugoslav Lands (Praistorija jugoslavenskih zemalja), Gabrovec devoted a lot of space to the chronology. He divided the whole time span of the Dolenjska group into five main phases: Podzemelj, Stična, Serpentine, Certosa and Negova. The main types of each of these phases were presented separately in six figures. If we take, for example, fig. 4 on p. 57 illustrating objects of the Serpentine phase (stupanj zmijolikih fibula), there are about one third which are in reality earlier, from the Stična phase, or later, from the Certosa phase. Earlier are the serpentine fibula no. 8 (cf. grave 48/27 from Stična) and the bracelet no. 14 (a thick solid bracelet with overlapping tapering ends, which is decorated with groups of transverse incisions or narrow ribs). To the types, which appear only in the Certosa phase and not before, belong the double-crested helmet, the pottery with indented walls (nos. 17, 18 and 21), the footed vase of type 10 after Dular (no. 20), and as well very probably the decorated rectangular bronze belt plate no. 16. The rest of the fibulae (nos. 6, 7, 9-13: serpentine fibulae with a saddle-shaped bow, leech fibulae, serpentine fibulae with wings, fibulae with a ribbed bow and a long foot, serpentine fibulae with plates, and band bow fibulae), the spiral band earrings (no. 12), the ribbed bracelets and anklets with overlapping tapering ends (no. 13) and the red-and-black vessels (nos. 22 and 23: the footed vase of type 9 after Dular and the situla with horizontal ribs) are without any doubt typical of the Serpentine phase!
In his study from 2010 Gabrovec ascribed a limited number of graves from barrow 48 to four stratigraphic and chronological phases: I, II, III and IV (pp. 46 and 55-56, fig. 21 on p. 40 and fig. 23 on p. 50).
Among the graves of phase I appears grave 19-22, a supposed central chamber, which did not exist and was a pure fabrication by Biba Teržan (cf. https://www.academia.edu/29260635 and https://www.academia.edu/11505808, Abstract). Gabrovec assigned to phase II not only graves of the Stična 2 phase, but also several graves of the following Serpentine phase (e. g. nos. 136, 147 and 151). Similarly, he ascribed to phase III not only graves of the Serpentine phase, but also one grave of the Stična 2 phase (no. 74) and two from the Certosa phase (nos. 85 and 99). Finally, in his list of graves of phase IV, not only graves from the Certosa phase, but also some of the preceding Serpentine phase appear (e.g. nos. 44 and 171). That means that graves from the Serpentine phase with their typical inventory (serpentine, leech and band bow fibulae, ribbed bracelets and anklets with overlapping tapering ends, spiral band earrings, red-and-black pottery) were ascribed by him to three chronological phases, which is completely wrong.
Especially poor is his presentation of the last phase IV. Although he first assigned to it no less than 97 graves (p. 44) and then (p. 55) about 19 graves with fibulae (13 serpentine, 19 Certosa, two animal-shaped and one three-knobbed), in the table on fig. 21 with typical graves of the four chronological phases (I-IV) there are only 10 graves of phase IV (cf. p. 47, Mit Beginn). They are all female and only two contain fibulae (nos. 8 and 36). All male graves of the Certosa phase and almost all graves with fibulae of this phase have simply disappeared!!?
To emend this false picture, I have written a study for the journal Prilozi 33, published by the Institute of Archaeology in Zagreb, in which I ascribed to Phase IV (= Certosa phase) 36 graves and presented also 36 metal (iron and bronze), glass, amber and pottery objects, which are typical for it.
The chapter by Gabrovec on the Hallstatt barrows from Stična, especially the sub-chapter on the chronology (pp. 46-55), is unfortunately, contrary to expectation not a scientific work. Had its author been a student of archaeology, in no way could he get a positive mark for it.
The publication of the Stična II/2 volume was made possible by Biba Teržan, the main co-author, and by the two reviewers, Janez Dular and Mitja Guštin. They are all students of Gabrovec and they all got the prize of the Slovenian Archaeological Society for their life’s work. This prize is given to those archaeologists, who contributed through their main achievements to the development of Slovenian archaeology and to the growth of its reputation at home and abroad. Stična II/2 volume has thrown a shadow on the work of Gabrovec in 2010, when the late professor reached 90 years. The duty of Teržan, Dular and Guštin was simply to emend it very much or not to include it in the publication. As a member of the editorial board I had no possibility to react, because the chief and responsible editor Peter Turk, who did his job in an extremely poor way, did not allow sight of the submitted texts and illustrations to three members of it (Istenič, Knific and me). The volume with studies on the Stična Hallstatt barrows (Stična II/2) has very much diminished the reputation not only of the publisher (The National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana), but also of the whole of Slovenian Early Iron Age archaeology.
The abstract was kindly proof read by John Collis from the University of Sheffield (UK).
Avče in the Soča Valley, May 2, 2017 (Tuesday)
The author of this contribution suggests combining two groups of bronze fibulae of Middle La Tène construction under the name “fibulae of the Zvonimirovo type”. For the typologically most closely related variants a, b and c1, closed grave groups from Zvonimirovo provide us with a date of LT C2. Variant c2, however, seems to date to LT D1.
Deutsch
Der Verfasser dieses Beitrags schlägt die Vereinigung zweier Gruppen von Bronzefibeln vom Mittellatèneschema unter der Bezeichnung „Fibeln vom Typ Zvonimirovo“ vor. Während uns die sicheren Grabverbände aus Zvonimirovo für die typologisch aufs Engste verwandten Varianten a, b und c1 eine Datierung in die Stufe LT C2 liefern, scheint Variante c2 eher in die Stufe LT D1 zu datieren.
Slovenščina
Pisec predlaga združitev dveh skupin bronastih fibul srednjelatenske sheme pod oznako »fibule vrste Zvonimirovo«. Zanesljive grobne celote iz Zvonimirova v hrvaškem Podravju dokazujejo datacijo med seboj zelo sorodnih različic a, b in c1 v stopnjo LT C2. Različica c2 pa sodi verjetno v stopnjo LT D1.
L’autore attribuisce dieci fibule, diffuse solamente in Friuli e nell’Isontino, a un nuovo tipo delle fibule dello schema medio La Tène, denominato da lui “tipo San Floriano”. Vari autori le hanno attribuite finora a tipi diversi, per esempio Kastav e Picugi. Quattro di esse sono in argento, il resto è in bronzo. La staffa ripiegata è decorata da tre globetti, tra i cui ci sono abitualmente delle costolature. La molla è composta di dieci o dodici avvolgimenti, fatti da un filo a
sezione circolare. La corda è avvolta attorno all’arco dall’interno verso esterno. Il tipo può essere datato in fase LT D1 e suddiviso in variante A con un arco semiovale dalla sezione circolare, in variante B con un globetto sull’arco e in variante C con un arco appiattito e riccamente decorato.
The appearance of late Certosa fibulae of variant VII f and of types X, XI/XII and XII with a bronze bow and foot and an iron spring and pin is limited to the territories of the Iapodes and the Colapiani in the regions of the Una Valley, Lika in Croatia, and the central and southern parts of Bela krajina in Slovenia. In these territories other two-part late Certosa fibulae appear along with the late Certosa fibulae with a two-part bronze-and-iron construction, but the spring and pin are made of bronze and were attached to the bow in different ways.
The two-part late Certosa fibulae with a bronze spring and pin are also known outside these territories, especially in the Notranjska, Kras, Friuli and Carnia regions. On the other hand exclusively one-part late Certosa fibulae are known from some large Hallstatt period cemeteries, like Magdalenska gora near Šmarje-Sap in Dolenjska and Most na Soči in the Soča Valley
No less than ten grave groups from Magdalenska gora, excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg and published in 1978 by Hugh Hencken, contain two-part late Certosa fibulae with a bronze-and-iron or a bronze-and-bronze construction. Since such fibulae are completely missing among the other grave finds from this site, kept in the museums of Ljubljana and Vienna, but are quite common in the large cemetery of Golek pri Vinici, also excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg, it is evident that they originate from Golek pri Vinici and were only later added to the grave groups from Magdalenska gora. The Golek pri Vinici Late Hallstatt-La Tène cemetery is almost entirely unpublished, but color photos of the finds and the basic information on them are available in the online collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, MA (USA): http://pmem.unix.fas.harvard.edu:8080/peabody/.
The presence of Certosa fibulae in graves of Magdalenska gora is known from Gustav Goldberg’s original notes. Thus, the appearance of two-part Certosa fibulae from Golek pri Vinici in the grave groups from Magdalenska gora means that those Certosa fibulae, which were originally found in them, were subsequently added to other graves from this and possibly other sites, excavated by the Duchess (Stična, Vače, Golek pri Vinici, etc.). The case of two-part late Certosa fibulae in the graves of the Mecklenburg Collection represents further proof that the grave groups from Magdalenska gora and Stična, excavated by the Duchess of Mecklenburg and uncritically published by Hugh Hencken and Peter Wells, are mixed to a very high degree and therefore not appropriate for serious scientific research.
"
In 1982 Davorin Vuga published a ground plan of the helmet grave from 1889, drawn by Pečnik's son Franc, and ascribed to it the bronze double-crested helmet and the bronze belt plate decorated with six animals. Several unpublished manuscripts and some reports published soon after the discovery in Vienna and in Ljubljana, not known to Stare, but collected by the author mostly before 1979, made it possible to also assign a pair of richly decorated iron spearheads to the helmet grave, as well as two rectangular belt attachments, a conical iron rod, and probably also two belt loops. Andrej Preložnik finally succeeded in determining the right pair of bronze crossbow Certosa fibulae.
In this paper we present the second grave. It was found by France Peruci, a teacher from Vače, on December 7, 1887.
The reconstruction of the find circumstances and the grave group is enabled by numerous written sources. Near the skel¬eton, in addition to the helmet, an iron socketed axe, a leather strap, two bronze, and two pottery vessels were found. A hollow bronze bracelet was found on one arm. Next to the skeleton there was a horse skeleton without a skull, on which an iron Scythian bit and four bronze strap-distributors were found. When Ignacij Hribar, the owner of the field, learned about the rich finds, he chased Peruci away and continued to excavate by himself. One fathom from the horse skeleton its skull was found along with two iron spearheads, a bronze belt plate, an iron knife, four iron rings with a loop and an iron bell, similar to the Scythian ones.
All three graves from Vače with a double-crested helmet can be dated to the later part of the Certosa phase.
We have known since 1883 that Janez Grilc, a peasant boy from Klenik near Vače not far from Litija in the Sava Valley (Slovenia), found a fragment of a bronze hollow spiral bracelet next to the Vače situla. Considering the graves from Magdalenska gora near Šmarje-Sap, Dolenjske Toplice and Novo mesto, all three sites lying in the Dolenjska region, which contained related bronze situlae, we would expect that if the situla belonged to a man we would also find associated weapons and in case the situla belonged to a woman, we would expect more jewellery. The only reasonable explanation for the absence of other objects in the grave is that Grilc only found the remains of the objects deposited in the grave with the Vače situla. This explanation is confirmed by some unpublished manuscripts, kept in the Prehistoric Department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, which testify that the situla lay in a grave of a young warrior, not entirely excavated on the 11th of August, 1881. This grave was first published in 1883 in Vienna by Ferdinand von Hochstetter in a study presenting the newest Hallstatt period grave finds from Vače (German Watsch) and Šmarjeta (German St. Margarethen). In the same year the curator of the Regional Museum of Carniola in Ljubljana Dragotin Dežman alias Karl Deschmann in another journal of Vienna presented the Vače situla.
The warrior possessed a double-crested helmet, two spearheads with a facetted socket, a socketed axe, an undecorated rectangular belt plate, a spindle-whorl and a decorated hollow bone cylinder in addition to the situla and the hollow bracelet. In the inventory book 4 of the Prehistoric Department it is stated: “Zu diesem Skelete gehört auch die im Frühjahre 1882, knapp neben der Fundstelle des Helmes, ausgegrabene getriebene Situla, im Laibacher Museum (aus Bronze).” Only the skull of the relatively well preserved skeleton was brought to the Natural History Museum in Vienna. It is still preserved in the anthropological collection of the Department of Anthropology and now bears the inventory number 5050.