Rare Roman calibration plate found in Czech Republic

A rare Roman metalworking tool discovered in the Czech Republic may shed new light on how Roman armor was made.

Experts consider a well-preserved calibration plate intended for stretching and thinning metal wires to be an exceptional find. Its holes are rusted and may contain traces of metal wires.

“We will hand over the calibration plate to the laboratory for spectrometric analysis, which will help us determine what material the wire was made of. The thinned wire could have been used, for example, to make chain mail,” added Moš. According to experts, this is an exceptional find in Central Europe.

The calibration plate was discovered in a rescue archaeology excavation along the route of a high-speed railway being built between Nezamyslice and Kojetín. The excavation of this 1.2 km stretch of the railway has uncovered more than 1,000 objects ranging in date from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman Imperial period.

The earliest finds are the remains of pile dwellings from the Early Bronze Age Veteřov culture. Details of the plaster coating the wattle and daub walls, including traces of the exterior decoration and the impression of wooden rods (wattle) on the interior, were preserved when the building was destroyed by fire. Other artifacts from the period include ceramic vessels, spindle whorls, beads, a bone needle and a bronze pin with a Cypriot-type head which predates all of the artifacts in the group and is evidence of trade or cultural interactions over long distances. Two burials in the settlement were also discovered, one of them containing the skeletal remains of one adult and one child.

From the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, archaeological materials and human remains of the Urnfield culture were found at the site. There was an Urnfield settlement there, and remains of structures have been unearthed as well as pottery. The most unexpected find was a group of partial skeletal remains in one of the settlement structures. Inside a backfilled pit, archaeologists discovered six skulls placed side by side. Urnfield peoples cremated the dead, and these were not inhumation burials given that there are no other bones, which suggests a ritual purpose. Nothing like that has been found before in Urnfield sites.

Objects relating to metal casting were found in the Urnfield settlement layer. Stone casting molds, crucibles and bronze objects (axes, needles, a knife) indicate these was a specialized workshop at the site where bronze objects were produced. They all date to the period of transition from Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age.

All of the finds recovered in the excavation have been transferred to the Archaeological Center Olomouc. The artifacts are now being cleaned, documented and conserved and subjected to scientific analyses. In addition to the material analysis of the calibration plate, the stone molds will also be tested for traces of the metals cast in them.

* This article was originally published here