The Blatnica-Mikulčice horizon is an early medieval

archaeological horizon In archaeology, the general meaning of horizon is a distinctive type of sediment, artefact, style, or other cultural trait that is found across a large geographical area from a limited time period. The term derives from similar ones in geology, ...

of metalwork. It emerged in the regions north of the

Middle Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

in present-day

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

and

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

following the fall of the

Avar Khaganate The Pannonian Avars () were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in chronicles of Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai ( el, Βαρχονίτες, Varchonítes), or Pseudo-Avars ...

in the early 9th century. The most featuring "Blatnica-Mikulčice" finds are swords with exquisite decorations from graves of male warriors. The name of the horizon is derived from the archeological localities in Blatnica (

) and

Mikulčice Mikulčice () is a municipality and village in Hodonín District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,000 inhabitants. Administrative parts The village of Těšice is an administrative part of Mikulčice. Mikulčice ...

(

). The artifacts (allegedly) from Blatnica were unearthed already in the 19th century and contained forgings of the late Avar type, forgings of the local provenance and a Carolinian sword. Even if it was in doubt whether all of them are from the same depot and really from Blatnica, most archeologists adopted a theory that they are from the same "ducal" grave. In the 1930s, a Hungarian archeologist

Nándor Fettich Nándor Fettich (7 January 1900, Acsád, Austria-Hungary – 17 May 1971, Budapest, Hungary) was a Hungarian archaeologist, goldsmith, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Biography Fettich finished high school in Szombathely and Budap ...

dated artifacts to the turnover of the 8th/9th century assuming their common origin and synthetic style. His dating was accepted also by the Czechoslovak experts. In the 1960s, a Czech archeologist Josef Poulík associated some of new findings in Mikulčice with those from Blatnica and a further research of old Slavonic stronghold in Pobedim ( Darina Bialeková) contributed to the establishment of the term. The concept of Blatnica-Miklučice horizon belonged for a long time to cornerstones of the Czechoslovak archeology and influenced dating of several early settlements in Czechia and Slovakia, but also in other Central-European countries. Although the term is still in use, it is target of serious criticism and also according to Bialeková it is not sustainable in the present state of research. The dating is nowadays validated by methods like

dendrochronology Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

and in some cases they led to re-evaluation of chronology (e.g. Pohansko, Pobedim).

References

Sources

* * * * * * Early medieval archaeological cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures of Central Europe Archaeological cultures in Slovakia {{Europe-archaeology-stub