39918 S5002302

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

5. La T&ne period finds before 1979

The find of the stone head in 1943

On May 19,1943, the local villager Josef Sląjchrt, whilst digging sand in the sand pit on the then cadaster area no. 299/3 (today 321/1) found three fragments of a stone head. The fourth fragment was recovered on the following day by a field watchman, S. Jefśbek. According to the report by I. Borkovsky who visited the site on May 28, the fragments of the sculpture (with old fracture planes) were found in a pit with a sąuare-shaped base and rounded corners, of 80-90 cm side-length, 80 cm - but, according to original records, morę likely 160 cm - deep (find report by L. Jan-sovś no. 753/68; also cf. Borkovsky 1946; Jansovś 1968).

The pit was situated 39 m NWW from the SW corner of the banka (which had been destroyed by the sand pit but its position can be reconstructed), i.e. 37 m from the W bank. Its black fili contained, apart from the fragments of the stone head, a number of other objects. Some of these were recovered by the men who discovered the sculp-ture, and the rest by I. Borkovsk£ According to the account given by one of the men (S. Jefśbek) the objects he found in the pit were assembled in a way that gave the impression of things being "tied up in a bundle". The last, fourth, fi-agment of the head was deposited "vertically, i.e. with the neck down. It was gazing in the direction of Lode-nice". (After the description by S. Jefśbek on May 30,1943, cf. supplement to find report no. 753/68. Lodenice is a village 1.5 km NE from the find-place.)

Description of the pit contents:

1. Pour fragments of a stone sculpture of a mant head with old fracture planes at the timo of the find. A smali section of the head ia missing and it is not known whother it was part of the original contents of the pit According to the macroscopic evaluation by A Kuł-vartov4, the stone of the sculpture is fine-grained crotaccous marlstone of the Bflś Hora type, found over a relatively largo area wost of Prague. Its noarest oc-currence from the findsite of the head is at a dii tance of 1 km. Ute stone head has appeared in numeraus publications and has been described in great detail many times. Therefore, 1 refer the reader to the art-his-torical analyais complete with a description, evaluation and selected bibliography by M R Megaw and J. V. S. Megaw (Megaw - Megaw 1988, and espedally Megaw ■ Megaw thia volume). The sculpture is deposited in the National Museum, Prague, inv. no. 111938.

The assodated finds are, unfortunately, missing and therefore for a description we must depend on the presenred documentation (based on: Jansov& 1968.477-478, Taf. II, and find report no. 753/68 with attached photographs, negative nos. 22441-22449 in the archives of Al Prague).

2.    A fragment of coiled iron wire 3 mm in diameter, total length appro*. 130 mm. Fig. 11:27.

3.    Pottery. Min. 25 fragments:

-    8 grapłiitic, partly combcd sherds ind. 1 fragment from a storage jar with a thickened rounded rim and 1 fragment with an iron reparatian damp (Fig. 11:13-18).

-    6 combcd. non-graphite coaise fabric fragments of a pot with thick flattened rim and a rib on the shoulders (Fig. 11:3-8),

•    5 sherds with grated surface ind. 3 sherds of a bipar-tito pot with a thickened rim (Fig. 11:11-12),

-    5 fragments of fine wheel-tumed pottery ind. two decorated by a bumished wavy linę on the outside surface (Fig. 11:1,2,9,10),

•    a circular spindle whorl madę out of a sherd (Fig. 11:19).

4.    Sapropelite

| 4 half-finished bracelets (Fig. 11:20-23),

•    1 half-finished ring madę from the core of a bracelet (Fig. 1124),

•    1 piece of worked sapropelite (Fig. 1125).

5.    Whetstone in two fragments: prismatic shape, one end broken ofT. Preservod length 133, width 27-30 mm. Fig. 11:26.

6.    Osteological materiał: Tb dale, only photographic documentation of 43 fragments of animal bones has sur-vived (photo negatiya na 22450-56) with the espertise of V. Z4zvorka (supplement 17 to the find report no. 753/68, cf Jansov4 1968,479; Borkovsky 1946.19). M. Beech carried out a new analyais of the finds based on the documentation available (Beech thia volume).

According to the photographic record, the sapropelite finds from the pit represent common half-fabricates or waate from the manufacturing of bracelets. Ute available evidence of sapropelite working on the site dates it back to the period of