Ancient secrets about the elite warrior class found on Hungary’s Somló Hill: Hoards of metal artifacts discovered
Hundreds of artifacts dating back as far as the Late Bronze Age in Hungary point to a warrior class living in what is now wine country.
Archaeologists are uncovering more details about an elite warrior class that would that lived in modern-day Hungary during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. At this time, the people who lived in the area were likely made up of clans, but details about the relationship or broader civilization remain unknown.
The Bronze Age collapse led to the demise of major civilizations primarily living around the eastern Mediterranean, including the Mycenaeans, Hittites, and New Kingdom Egyptians. The collapse continues to be a bit of a mystery, with some causes having been drawn out through archaeological and geophysical evidence, but the scale of the downfall is difficult to understate. Historian Eric H. Cline explains that a collapse of that scale today would look like the sudden disappearance of the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union all at once.
Today, Somló is part of Hungary’s wine country, sitting atop an extinct volcano. The artifacts offer a rare glimpse into the use of the area by people living thousands of years ago. In addition to artifacts, the researchers identified “large quantities of bronze lumps, droplets, casting jets and fragmented plano-convex ingots [which] suggest the presence of bronzeworking workshops on the plateau.”
Archaeology Today, citing the study published by Antiquity, that the discovery, from the weapons to the evidence that metal working had occurred, could mean that the area was a “power seat for tribal or clan societies.” AT suggests that the area may have been used by an “elite warrior class” given that the weapons and armor are not accompanied by other goods that might suggest the presence of women and children.
New technology used to examine ancient sites
Lidar and metal section surveys were carried out in 2024, which allowed the researchers to examine the area that had long been known to contain artifacts. The maps created as a result of the survey led the team to identify points of interest for the archaeologists to begin their search.
The study explains that the metal section survey “identified more than 300 Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age artefacts” with some “areas of high density” found, contrasting with other areas where the artifacts were there were fewer points of detection, which the authors attributed to “modern modification of the geomorphology.”
Upon dating the artifacts, the researchers found that they had been created as far back as 1400 to 1300 BCE and as early as the fifth to six century BCE. However, most of the pieces found are thought to be from 1080–900 BC. “Occupation on the hilltop seems to have been uninterrupted during the transition into the Early Iron Age and, contrary to our previous understanding,” wrote the authors.
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