A new look at old finds - objects from graves dating from the Early Roman period from Prague-Vinohrady
Abstract
The subject of the submitted study is an assemblage of Roman period artefacts which was handed over to the National Museum in 1897. The assemblage was first published by J.
L. Píč, but his work unfortunately contained serious errors.
The information about this assemblage was then uncritically copied for the next century, which sort of prevented scholars from fully using the information potential of this unique assemblage. It results from a re-evaluation of the assemblage that most objects probably come from only one, rich cremation grave.
Just a few artefacts may suggest that several more objects originating from other graves might have been added to it. The exceptional nature of the assemblage is also indicated by the presence of a bimetalic plate spur with four rivets.
Such spurs occur in rich warrior graves distributed from southern Scandinavia through the Lower Elbe region up to the Middle Danube region. The assemblage from Prague-Vinnohrady, similarly to the grave from Řepov, belongs to a group of rich warrior graves with Roman provincial imports dating from the turn of the 2nd century AD.
They represent an elite layer of Germanic society of the late Flavian period and the following period of the first adoptive emperors.