Mineralogy of the ceramic slags from the Bronze Age funerary site at Lăpuş (NW Romania)

A Bronze Age (13–12 th century B.C.) necropolis and cult area in Lăpuş (NW Romania) has been studied. The mound investigated during the present campaign covered a multi-phased wooden cult building containing bronze objects, ceramic potshards and slag pieces. The latter have a mammillary smooth surface, irregular shape and a high porosity. Optical microscopy reveals a colourless to brown vitreous mass, full with various-sized pores making up to 40 vol.% of the total slag. The glass includes relic phases, e.g., quartz, partly melted plagioclase and rutile, rare zircon, ilmenite and magnetite-rich spinel. Cristobalite and various silicates were formed within the glass and at the wall of the vesicles during cooling. The latter include fayalite, ferrosilite, magnetite-dominated spinel, hematite, clinopyroxene, mullite and cordierite. About 1/3 of the total volume of the slag consists of glass with a wide variety of SiO2 ranging from 49 to 76 wt.%. It is inhomogeneous, with local enrichment in Fe, Ca, Mg, Ti and K. The pore structure, the partial melting of plagioclase and rutile, the newly formed SiO2 polymorphs (cristobalite) and the Fe(Al) silicates indicate, all indicate maximum temperatures of 1100–1200°C for the fire generating the slags. The slags are not related to any metallurgical but to an anthropogenic pyrometamorphic process and formed as a result of overfiring some ceramic vessels which may have contained ritual offerings. Intentionally initiated firing of the wooden structures is the most likely the agent of this high temperature. The slags resemble buchites and can be termed “ceramic slags

The Late Bronze Age hoard from Bækkedal, Denmark – new evidence for the use of two-horse teams and bridles

In late summer 2014, two metal detectorists located 40 bronze objects on a small hillock west of Gammel Skørping in Himmerland. Eastern Himmerland in particular is renowned for its many Late Bronze Age hoards and the Bækkedal hoard, as the discovery is now known, underlines this trend as it represents a multi-type hoard from Late Bronze Age period V. The hoard, which was undergoing progressive plough disturbance, contains both male and female items and, astonishingly, also several metres of well-preserved leather straps that had once formed parts of bridles and harness. Moreover, several bronze fittings, including cheek pieces and phalerae, were in situ on the leather straps, thereby enabling parts of the bridles to be reconstructed. The many bronze harness-related objects show that the hoard represents the components of bridles for a twohorse team. This article gives a preliminary presentation of the hoard, with a particular focus on the metal objects and horse harness, which are then placed in a broader northwest European context