Late Bronze Age Hoard Majdan/Ridžali

Abstract

A late Bronze Age hoard from Majdan/Ridžali, the closest surroundings of Zavidovići to the north, is an accidental archaeological discovery dating back to 1979. According to the site where it was uncovered, i.e. its microlocation, it was placed by a significant pass on the main route of one of the most important rivers of Bosnia and Herzegovina – the Bosna River.
Of its precisely defined inventory we came to see some traditional weapons, warrior equipment and/or tools, the parts of them only, which define the hoard to be of average quantity and mixed composition, with different items preserved to a different extent. It consists of 7 preserved items that, judging by the importance of their properties, can be divided in 2 categories and 4 typological groups; a sword with its tongue-shaped handle of Reutlingen type, a Staro Topolje variant, the tips of spear in a form of flame-shaped leaf, an axe with the central sideburns in the upright position, cylindrical socketed-axe with a blunt end and a sickle with tongue-shaped handle and distinctive “Y” ornament of “a” or Uioara 2 type.
The hoard from Majdan/Ridžali is, in its own distinctive way, a logical reflection of the culture of a time and place. Apart from the collective value, apostrophized is a possibility to recognize the hoard as an individual precious object. In all cases the hoard is understood to have the prominent attributes of male base which is cognitively connected with a category of the ambivalent warrior – farmer who used to perform different functions in the society in different social circumstances. One can recognize a status suggested by some items as direct indicators of the status symbols of their possessor and his manipulations of the cultural “knowledge” either as a whole or in such fragments. The same is asserted by the way of how specific parts are fragmented in terms of the complexity of pars pro toto communication (non)verbal system, and consequently the creation of interpersonal relationships in the society.
Based on a formal and contextual analysis, it is suggested that the hoard is interpreted as a reflection of an “act” of direct conveyance of the symbolic and identification sign to another, more distance place, where it used to be recognized as a separate unity of specific cultural knowledge from a broader but simultaneously present cultural network of knowledge. Since attention is drawn to a “ritual as an activity” by way of which the “subject” of the hoard was deliberately left intact, it explicitly testifies to their symbolic role of perception of a completely built identity, with the interlinkage between space and time. Hence, even with the “subject” like this, it is clearly possible for one to determine more precisely the period when it was deposited.
In cultural and historical aspects, it represents the application of a classical pattern of hoard finds from the South Pannonia region, its cultural circumstances and Urnfield culture of Ha A1 phase, synchronized with the late 13th, i.e. first half of the 12th century B.C. of the corrected Central European periodization. Territorially, the hoard is placed to the time span of the IInd hoard horizon of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereas, in terms of identity perception, we understand it as part of the IInd horizon of the Sava-Drava Interamnium.