Sensational find in Lower Austria

Archaeologists excavate an entire Celtic village

Valuable finds discovered - Putzgruber with Dr. Jiri Militky (National Museum Prague) and head of research Dr. Maciej Karwowski

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Hermann Paschinger)

Treasures dating back centuries before Christ have been discovered in the ground in the small village of Ronthal. Archaeologists discovered sensational and touching artifacts. 

Gold and silver coins, detailed pieces of metal, iron and bronze, fragments of glass bangles and much more from the 3rd to 1st century BC were carefully recovered from the earth - probably also thanks to the intuition of researcher Gerhard Putzgruber. The site of the historical blessing: the small Ronthal near the "Fünfeckiger Stein" on the municipal border of Straß im Straßertal in the district of Krems. "The artefacts are embedded in an entire Celtic settlement," explains Dr. Maciej Karwowski from the University of Vienna, who was responsible for the further excavation together with Dr. Jiri Militky from the National Museum in Prague.

We are overjoyed to be able to preserve these treasures for posterity.

Gerhard Putzgruber

The site was on a trade route
The trio suspects an entire trading settlement with coin production. The historians' assumption: "Several find sites, such as the then central town of Roseldorf in the district of Hollabrunn, suggest that a trade route ran along the Amber Road - from Upper Silesia across the Moravian Plateau to here north of the Danube. An additional treasure trove: magnetometry, a kind of "ground radar", even revealed the floor plans of pit houses.