The Blučina burial is a

Migration Period The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...

princely burial at

Blučina Blučina is a municipality and village in Brno-Country District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,300 inhabitants. Blučina lies about south of Brno. History The first written mention of Blučina is from 1240. ...

in the

South Moravian Region The South Moravian Region ( cs, Jihomoravský kraj; , ; sk, Juhomoravský kraj) is an administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the south-western part of its historical region of Moravia (an exception is Jobova Lhota which trad ...

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 ...

. It was excavated in 1953 by Karel Tihelka (1898–1973). The burial dates to the second half of the 5th century, i.e. the period of alleged unrest, as the Germania Magna Pagens were never defeated,

Atilla Attila (, ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in March 453. He was also the leader of a tribal empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and ...

never ever even went on

Czech lands The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands ( cs, České země ) are the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1918, the Czech Socialist Republic since 1 ...

. The grave is situated on Strže hill, above the confluence of the Litava and Svratka rivers in the

Dyje–Svratka Valley The Dyje–Svratka Valley ( cs, Dyjsko-svratecký úval, german: Thaya-Schwarza Talsenke) is a geomorphological feature (a special type of vale) in South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. History The Dyje–Svratka Valley has been a natural ...

. It contained the remains of a Germanic ( Langobards?) King (Rex), deceased in his thirties, arrayed with a golden-hilt

spatha The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between 0.5 and 1 m (19.7 and 39.4 in), with a handle length of between 18 and 20 cm (7.1 and 7.9 in), in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD ...

, a seax, a bow, a saddle and three green glass vessels, besides items of personal jewellery, including a 50

solidi The ''solidus'' (Latin 'solid'; ''solidi'') or nomisma ( grc-gre, νόμισμα, ''nómisma'', 'coin') was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. Constantine introduced the coin, and its weight ...

gold arm ring. The Blučina sword is a rare example of an "Alamannic type" gold-hilted spatha found in a number of graves of very high-ranking warriors of the second half of the 5th century. Also two identical gold Germanic swords of the same type have been found in present-day central Germany located in

Pleidelsheim Pleidelsheim is a municipality in the state of Baden-Württemberg, about north of Stuttgart. Pleidelsheim is situated on the right bank of the Neckar river across from Ingersheim. This historical town has buildings that date back to the 14th ...

and

Villingendorf Villingendorf is a town in the Rottweil (district), district of Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. References

Rottweil (district) Populated places on the Neckar basin Populated riverside places in Germany {{Rottweil-geo-stub ...

. (see

Germania magna Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north-c ...

Germania Slavica ''Germania Slavica'' is a historiographic term used since the 1950s to denote the landscape of the medieval language border (roughly east of the Elbe-Saale line) zone between Germans and Slavs in Central Europe on the one hand and a 20th-century s ...

)A total of 20 known examples are listed by Frank Siegmund in Ian N. Wood (ed.), ''

Franks The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, ...

and

Alamanni The Alemanni or Alamanni, were a confederation of Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the in 260, and later expanded into pres ...

in the Merovingian period: an ethnographic perspective'', Boydell & Brewer, 1998, , p. 192.

References

*K. Tihelka, ''Das Fürstengrab von Blučina'' (1963)

External links

Blučina sword
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blucina burial Archaeological sites in the Czech Republic Tumuli