The Blučina burial is a

Migration Period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, 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 ...

princely burial at Blučina in the

South Moravian Region The South Moravian Region (; , ; ), or just South Moravia, is an Regions of the Czech Republic, administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the south-western part of its historical region of Moravia. The region's capital is Brno, th ...

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

. 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 ( or ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central Europe, C ...

never went on

Czech lands The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands (, ) is a historical-geographical term which denotes the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia out of which Czechoslovakia, and later the Czech Republic and Slovakia, were formed. ...

. 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 () is a valley and a geomorphological mesoregion of the Czech Republic. It is located in the South Moravian Region. Its name is derived from the rivers Thaya (Dyje) and Svratka. Geomorphology The Dyje–Svratka Valley ...

. It contained the remains of a Germanic (

Langobards The Lombards () or Longobards () were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 and 796) th ...

?) King (Rex), deceased in his thirties, arrayed with a golden-hilt

spatha The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between , with a handle length of between , in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD. Later swords, from the 7th to 10th centuries, like the Viking ...

, 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'' () was a highly pure gold coin issued in the Later Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. It was introduced in the early 4th century, replacing the aureus, and its weight of about 4 ...

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 and

Villingendorf Villingendorf (Swabian German, Swabian: ''Villingedorf'') is a town in the Rottweil (district), district of Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. References

Rottweil (district) Populated places on the Neckar basin Populated riversi ...

. (see

Germania magna Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Super ...

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 Germanic people and Slavs in Central Europe on the one hand and a 20 ...

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

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

and

Alamanni The Alemanni or Alamanni were a confederation of Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River during the first millennium. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Roman emperor Caracalla of 213 CE, the Alemanni c ...

in the

Merovingian period The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...

: 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