Roman bronze vessels in the region north of the Middle Danube

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Grabfunde
Hort und Streufunde
Mähren und Niederösterreich
The occurrence of antique metal vessels, especially products from various bronze alloys, within the territory outside the Roman imperial border presents a special issue all aspects of which have not been fully clarified yet. In many of the previous periods the presence of metal vessels, e.g. in the chieftain graves of the late Bronze Age, in rich grave chambers of the Hallstatt period or in late Celtic graves from the 1st century BC or early 1st century AD has already been considered an attribute of the highest social position. With the inhabitants of non-Roman Germania the metal vessels, especially in cremation graves, appear as early as from the late La-Tène period; in rich skeleton graves these are found from the beginning of the 1st century AD. In the Germanic milieu, too, placing of smaller or larger collections of metal, especially bronze vessels into graves as prestigious gifts may be regarded not only a demonstration of funeral customs but also a mark of a certain social hierarchy. In the everyday life a majority of them were used as table utensils or drinking collections, bigger items were apparently used for cooking as well. Their adoption by a society on a much lower level of civilization than the Roman one was related with the barbarian effort to draw nearer to the antique way of life. Thus it is a certain form of acculturation that was not effective overall but stemmed from the circuit of eminent personalities, members of the higher social stratum, who, like e.g. Marobuduus, dwelled at the imperial court and could have become directly acquainted with the Roman customs and mensal culture. A personality like this could also have been the Suebian king Italicus, mentioned with the Danubian Suebi in the 1st century AD; after all his certain Romanization is supported by his name itself. Together with the forming of differentiated social structures within barbarian communities, and by strengthening the institution of warriors retinues surrounding the prominent representative of the tribe, the barbarian society has mainly adopted and adjusted the drinking habits, as reflected by a number of dippers, ladles, strainers and also precious silver kantharoi. In the course of time the utensils were getting into the hands of an ever greater circle of people. This is also supported by the fact that especially in the 1st and 2nd centuries the metal vessels as gifts in graves present quite a usual phenomenon although in cremation graves they are either distorted and broken for ritual reasons, or damaged by the blazing of the funeral pile. Despite the impossibility of making a greater intervention in the dispute which part of this quantity was getting to the barbarian territory through trading, and which was either a gift or a bribe to the barbarian ruler, it seems that the latter was primarily related to the prestigious silver vessels or products of toreutic value made from non-ferrous metals. The common types of dippers, ladle collections, strainers and also simple, barrel-shaped buckets were apparently distributed through Roman trade after which, however, redistribution within the barbarian communities and among them selves could have followed. Whatever the case might have been the geographical distribution of the Roman metal vessels in the space and time proves that the intensity of their flood into the individual regions was positively correlated with the interest of Rome in the course of events and political situation in these regions and it has changed in the course of time.
 

The fact that the densest and oldest concentration of finds of the Roman metal vessels in the entire non-Roman area to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube is found in the territory of central and northern Bohemia has been pointed out many times. In the local cremation burying grounds and in the sporadic skeletal graves from the 1st third of the 1st century AD we find not only luxurious bronze, sometimes silver tableware too, but also goods of utility character manufactured in the workshops in the surroundings of Capua, Italy, and partly also in north Italian workshops. The goods have apparently flown here through the traders from Noricum, at that time a clientage Roman kingdom; to these traders a considerable part of the trade with the beyond-Danubian barbarian territories has been apportioned even in the preceding late La Tène period. Although the German graves from Bohemia show also examples of Roman import pervading to the north of the Danube even in the pre-Augustan period, e.g. buckets with dolphin- or heart-shaped attachments (according to Eggers classification types Nos. 18-19), in the graves from this period of time principally the high-quality products from Italian workshops of the Augustan period are prevalent. These are represented e.g. by splendid bronze buckets with mask handle attachments (Eggers 24), collections of jugs and bowls with fixed handles (pateras), luxurious bowls with palmette attachments of movable handles and some other products continuing the Hellenistic traditions of Alexandria manufacturing centres. As parts of drinking collection of this time the most widely spread were the collections of strainers and ladles with scroll-shaped broadened handles (Eggers 159), but mostly dippers with handles terminated by curls for hanging equipped with stylized bird heads (Eggers 131). The time of manufacture of these vessels is roughly Augustan, but early Tiberian period at the latest, while many of them have obviously got into the graves with a certain delay. Contrary to the late La Tène import these products are labelled as products of the 2nd generation of bronze vessels within the frame of which they are classified as its first phase according to R. Petrovszky.

According to a consensual judgement of researchers the unusually strong, and essentially sudden flow of import of Roman bronze vessels into the environment of the Germanic tribes, then settled in the territory of Central Bohemia, was related to the blossoming of the so-called Marobuduus Empire. The striking concentration of these vessels on a relatively small area reflects not only an existence of a centre of power of Marcomanni in the Czech basin, but also an eminent Roman interest in the development within this area, and possibly also an endeavour to exert a certain influence on it.

At that time somewhat different circumstances prevailed in the slightly more eastern territory, in the stripe stretching to the north from the middle course of the Danube and in the direct neighbourhood of the later provinces of Noricum and Pannonia I. It is roughly the territory of the today south and central Moravia, the adjoining parts of Lower Austria and south-western Slovakia. These areas may be understood as a natural geomorphologic whole that opens towards the Danube. Its main axes pointing to the north are formed by the Morava and Váh Rivers alongside of which important connecting lines between the Danubian basin and the Baltic have lead from of old (the so-called Amber Route).

 

Staré Hradisko (oppidum)
Bratislava-Devín
The occurrence of older forms of bronze vessels of the southern origin in Celtic oppidi both in Bohemia and Moravia, as well as numerous grave finds from the early phases of Przeworsk culture in the area of present-day Poland illustrate that the Roman-Norican trade has made use of these routes as early as in the course of the late 1st century BC. Not even the finds of brooches of Alesia, Aucissa and Nertomarus types, scattered especially alongside the lower course of the Morava river and alongside the Váh to the very regions of north-western Slovakia where the Púchov culture has flourished at that time, have indicated that these connecting lines would have been left aside the then Roman trade interests, which, according to the distinctive artefacts and coins, have obviously been implemented to a great degree because of the Norican traders again. This makes the fact that the proofs of a more intense Roman import of metal vessels from the time of the greatest deployment of Marobuduus Empire in Bohemia are only represented scantily, and very often in later contexts, even more surprising. The reason for a limited occurrence of Roman bronze vessels from the Augustan period clearly is that in this period of time the above regions either have not been inhabited by Germans for whom the burial rite using metal vessels as a form of gift has been peculiar, and who were the main purchaser circle for this import, or settled by them only to a minimum extent.

Sládkovicovo
Sládkovicovo
Kostolná
Bratislava-Devín

During the reign of Emperor Tiberius, the successor of Augustus, there are marked changes of the situation occurring in these regions as well. The increase in number of Roman metal vessels may be related to founding of the first German burial grounds with the Elbe-Germanic ceramics mainly in the region along the downstream of March-Morava River and in south-western Slovakia, the best known of which are cemeteries in Abrahám, Kostolná and Sládkovicovo. Although the oldest layer of bronze vessels is represented by kinds known from the Czech region as well, their number is markedly lower here. The metal vessels are again mainly represented by dippers with handle terminations in the shape of bird heads (Eggers 131), early types of ladles and strainers with scroll-shaped widened handles or transitory types (Eggers 159/160), bowls with moving handles (Eggers 92) or bowls with fixed horizontal and striated handles that are terminated by ram heads (Hagenow type pateras).

Kostolná
Kostolná
Drösing

 
Mannersdorf a. d. March

 

Trebusice
Trebusice

Mistelbach Kostolná
Kostolná
Apart from these relatively scarce archaic forms produced during the Augustan period the types of imported goods are manifestly prevalent; admittedly these also come from the Italian workshops of Capua but as their production falls mainly within the Tiberian period, in the Czech context of finds these appear more scarcely. These are mainly dippers the discoid handle terminations are broken by semicircular, lunate or even circular opening. The handler are often decorated by a classic thyrsus with bines or other rod-shaped decor (Eggers, early 137-138 types). Some of these bear stamps with names of the old Capuan masters who have still participated in the manufacture of dippers with handles decorated with bird heads.


Láb

 
Križovany nad Dudváhom

 

   
   
   
   
Križovany nad Dudváhom

 

 

A prevalence of these finds in the area to the north of Carnuntum where new purchase centres emerge as a result of political changes and continuing migrations is best illustrated by a comparison of their occurrence in both regions. Thus for example the numerary prevalence of Augustan dippers with handle terminations in the form of bird heads (Eggers 131, or 135) over dipper variants with lunate or semicircular opening (Eggers 137-140) is documented by the 6 : 1 ratio in Bohemia, whereas in the North Danubian stripe this ratio is almost inverse, and makes 1 : 4 in favour of the younger late Augustan and Tiberian types.

 
Kostolná
SládkovicovoSládkovicovo
Some ladles and strainers of the Eggers 159/160 transitory type, and especially unique buckets with mask rests for handles or rests in the form of Maenads and a classic workmanship of handles with ambilateral leaf-shaped handles may also be relatively early.


Abrahám

 
Apart from attachments and a handle which have been secondarily fastened to a markedly younger vessel from the princely grave in Mušov, out of this kind of situlae originate also the handles from the collection of finds, perhaps an inventory of an early grave, in Schwechat near Vienna. Their analogues from a Danish princely grave near Hoby and a Rhine-basin whole in Mehrum justify a conclusion that the buckets have also been manufactured prior to the half of the 1st century although their placing into the grave has been reckoned with as late as around the half of the 1st century.
Mušov

 

Mannersdorf a. d. March
Some other unusual types, e.g. a dipper with projections near the fixing of the handle, which has evidently been broken by an opening in the shape of a trefoil, from a cremation grave in Mannersdorf a. d. March, albeit produced in the thirties of the 1st century at the soonest, number among this layer of imported Roman bronze vessels.


On the whole increase of the bronze vessel import into the region north of the middle Danube in the Tiberian period presents a mixture of forms that fall within both the first, but mainly the second phase of the so-called second generation of bronze vessels according to R. Petrovszky. Rather than to the Czech grave compounds from the local top phase it is thus closer to the inventory of the older stratum of the so-called princely graves of Eggers B1 stage, scattered in the other regions of the non-Roman Germania, and best represented by the collections from the older cremation grave from Hagenow, from skeleton graves in Hoby, from graves I/1908 and III/1913 in Lubieszewo (Lübsow), from grave II in Rzadz in Poland, or the cremation grave 150 in Putensen in the region along the downstream of Elbe. From the chronological point of view analogous examples of import in the region to the north of Carnuntum may be justifiably related with the existence of the so-called Vannius kingdom the decline of which in the year 50 AD has created the prerequisites for a further development of the Roman import of metal vessels into the region in the period to follow.

The latest researches provide for an opinion that the import of Roman metal vessels escalates only after the overthrow of the Quadian king Vannius, i.e. roughly from the Claudian period. It brings products we would, according to R. Petrovszky´s classification, label as early products of the 3rd phase of the 2nd generation bronze vessels. The finds from this import phase greatly outnumber the sum of vessels that have reached the territory to the north of the Danube in the 1st half of the 1st century. According to the latest knowledge the time of their production falls within the period of time roughly from the thirties, or forties of the 1st century to the late stage of this century.

Blucina

 
Drásov

 
Blucina

The then imported range is again dominated by dippers. In addition to the previously known types with a lunate or a semicircular hole in the terminating discoid of the handle, albeit of a more advanced character, there are highly predominant forms with a circular cut-out of the terminating disc. Peculiar for all types of dippers of this group are more massive ends with bottoms bearing relief concentric furrows; these illustrate that the Italian workshops have adopted more effective manufacturing processes during which the products have been additionally turned. The dippers of the above type are abundantly encountered both in the burial grounds of the Abrahám-Kostolná-Sládkovicovo circuit and in the graves of the Lower Austrian – South Moravian region, e.g. in Drásov, Breclav, Mistelbach etc.
Staré Mesto

Mistelbach
Although the more advanced types of buckets of the Goslawice - Leg Piekarski type with slightly schematized attachments and handles that are predominant in the younger layer of princely graves of Eggers B1 stage in the non-Roman Germania region, are only insufficiently represented for the time being, there are examples of other bronze vessels that are often found in this environment. These include e.g. broad bowls with fixed, omega-shaped handles of Eggers type 99 or 100, then some forms of jugs, especially lower variants with trefoil formed nozzles and figural decors on the lower part of Millingen type handles, that have appeared e.g. in the graves in Mistelbach, in the grave in Mušov at St. Jan, in the finds from Mor. Krumlov etc. A fragmental horizontal handle terminated with a lion head from a patera that comprises sacrificial collections together with the jugs of the mentioned type, comes from grave 10 in Kostolná.

 

Gefäße der 3. Phase der 2. Bronzegefäßgeneration na Petrovszky

 
Mušov

 
Velatice

As early as in this period the products of Gallic workshops start to appear; these have been increasingly taking over the role of the Italian manufacturing circles and edging out the obviously more expensive products of Campania out of the market. These include e.g. a dipper with a simplified Gallic thyrsus on a handle that was terminated by a disc with a circular cut-out, from grave 6 in Velatice. The numbers of examples of simpler collections of ladles and strainers with rod- or row-shaped handles that flow into Germanic markets as a new kind of bronze utensils are on the increase. Since the Claudian-Flavian period various variants of simple, barrel-shaped buckets have been flowing into the areas to the north of the Danube; these buckets are often found in Germanic graves, and therefore they can hardly be considered really valuable gifts but rather articles of a common barter trade.

Favourable conditions for the increase of import of bronze vessels into the beyond the Danubian frontier of the barbaricum were also given by the efforts of Rome to enter into stronger trade relations with the Baltic regions where amber was exploited; these relations were especially on the increase during Emperor Nero. Another factor might have been the internal political situation in Rome itself after the death of this emperor. As follows from the reports by Tacitus, Vannius´ followers have remained allied to the Imperium. It is known that Italicus and Sido, the Suebian kings, have fought on the side of Emperor Vespasian during the civil war, and together with their warriors they have participated in the battle of Cremona. In this context there are deliberations about a certain possible relation of these events and an abundant occurrence of green-glazed, Upper Italian ceramic kantharoi in the Germanic graves of south-western Slovakia, that are even sometimes interpreted as spoils of war. Besides, to this effect it would be possible to explain also the origin of some antique pieces of Augustan silver vessels and luxurious ancient toreutics dated back to Augustan or an even older period (a bronze lamp, a folding table), that were found in the royal grave of  Mušov. It is primarily their exclusivity and an absence of persuasive parallels in the entire Middle Danubian area that intercedes for such interpretation.

Vysoká pri Morave

Zohor
At the sight of cartographic spread and make-up of the bronze vessels the time of manufacture of which falls primarily within the forthcoming Flavian period their certain concentration especially in two regions north of Danubian frontier will not escape attention. This situation may reflect certain changes that have occurred after Domitian´s Suebian wars around the year 100. The characteristic representatives of luxurious and expensive bronze utensils are mostly ascertained in rich skeleton graves in the Slovak Morava basin area, i.e. to the west of the Little Carpathians (Vysoká, Zohor) and in the south-Moravian/Lower Austrian borderland, i.e. in the area of the central and lower Thaya basin. Here the skeleton grave from Neu Ruppersdorf and the rich cremation grave from Rothenseehof stand in the fore.
Neuruppersdorf

 
Rothenseehof

Zohor
Zohor
Apart from cheaper collections of ladles and strainers (Eggers 160 and Eggers 162) and simple barrel-shaped buckets, the latest massive dippers of Capuan origin with workshop stamps of Masters Cipius Polybius or Ansius Epaphroditus are especially typical for this horizon of import. With some of these examples with a high relief of handle cross-section or with stamped decor, and especially with unique dippers of Goddaker type it may be rightfully assumed that these have already been produced in Gallic workshops that have achieved almost a mass establishment of themselves by collections of ladles and strainers with frequent stamps of Gallic masters. The choice of the then favourite types of bronzeware may be completed further by the examples of later variants of broad bowls with omega-shaped fixed handles of Eggers type 100-101, or simpler bowls made of bronze plate, Eggers type 70.

Vysoká pri Morave
The picture of the geographic spread of this wave of import in other parts of the non-Roman Germania conspicuously reaches also the regions of north-western Germany and Denmark. Its extent may be best expressed in terms of the spread of the late situla- or barrel-shaped buckets Eggers 25 and 26 that are characterized by an almost identical workmanship of markedly simplified mask attachments and handles. From the territory to the north of the Danube these originate e.g. from graves in Vysoká, the cremation grave in Rothenseehof and from the disturbed graves in Menín, but their frequent occurrence in the princely graves of Eggers B2 stage from the north-western part of non Roman central Europe and from Scandinavia e.g. from Marwedel, Apensen, Klatzow, Dollerup, Skrobeshave, Juellinge etc., in which they were found in an approximately identical chronologic environment, clearly exemplifies the north-western direction of this Roman export import, beyond which an interval- Germanic exchange of luxurious goods occurring between the individual Germanic centres of power could have been hidden.

 

Menín

 

Although the examples of this import horizon are not absent even in the region between the Váh and the Lesser Carpathian Mountains (Abrahám, Kostolná, Sládkovicovo), an agglomeration of luxurious finds especially in the area on the Slovak bank of the River March-Morava and in the borderland of Moravia and Lower Austria is certainly striking. The Germanic archaeological evidence, which moreover betrays certain relations to the north Elbe environment, does not exclude that further movement of the Elbe region tribes towards the Danube that have culminated by Domitian wars at the very end of the 1st century and the final consequence of which has been the stabilization of the new centre of power to the north of central Danube could have been in the background of the strengthening of trade and cultural contacts between the more distant north Elbe area and the Roman Danube basin. According to the latest knowledge these can be attributed to the Danubian Marcomanni.

Zohor
Zohor
In respect of the make-up of bronze utensils, on the other hand, the inventories of the relatively wealthy skeletal graves from Vysoká, Zohor (esp. grave No. 5), Neuruppersdorf, as well as the cremation warrior grave from Rothenseehof show a perceptible alliance with the equipment of provincial barrow graves (in the Rhine basin e.g. in Monreal, Lösnich etc., in Pannonia e.g. in Inota, Káloz etc.), that fall within the period of time from the late Flavian era to the 1st half of the 2nd century. Besides the usual bronze vessels in these graves we are also encountered with characteristic collections of jugs or kettles with figural decoration of the handle and bowls with horizontal handles (pateras) of the so-called Cantenbury type that have already been produced by Gallic workshops in the Flavian period. These collections, by then missing in the wealthy funerals of the more northern Germanic zone, bear a witness of the strong influence of a partial Romanization of the local elites, possibly of their effort to get closer by their grave equipment to the leading strata in the Roman provinces. It is highly probable that this picture of a certain acculturation relates to the circumstances governing in the middle Danube area at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD after the so-called Suebian wars of emperor Domitian which have only been ended by Emperor Nerva after the renewal of dependant relations of the local Germans to the Roman Empire. As for instance Tacitus suggests, this has probably not only brought a dynastic change within the local Germanic tribes, but has also led to the strengthening of a social group of military aristocracy in the milieu of which the somewhat later princely grave of Mušov has had its predecessors. It is nevertheless surprising that within the collection of bronze vessels accumulated in this grave there was no marked types of bronze - vessels that could have been classified within the preceding horizon of Vysoká-Zohor grave 5 – Neu Ruppersdorf.

Zohor

 
Zohor

This fact is even more remarkable as the common bronze vessels imported into the north Danubian area after year 100 as tippers, strainers and ladles, cask - buckets etc. have survived here in the numerous Germanic collections at least until the Marcomannic wars.
Velatice

 

Mikulov
Mikulov
Everything indicates that even in the period after Marcomannic wars the flow of bronze vessels into both regions to the north of the Danube has not ceased, contrary to numerous assertions. By contrast, we witness a renewed rise of both the import and trade contacts that have had a far-reaching impact even on the more distant spheres of antique Germania. The barbarian stripe in the foreground of the Norican-Pannonian border of the Empire has conspicuously played a mediator role in the distribution of new types alongside the so-called Amber trade-route in the north direction. This is especially testified by the fact that the finds of late forms of Roman import which would correspond to grades B2/C1 and C1 of the barbarian chronology, are by no means rare in the south Moravian – Lower Austrian territory or in the south-western Slovakia.

 

    
Blucina
 
Mikulov

 

Šitborice
Czarnówko
Baumgarten
 Dvory nad Žitavou
It is primarily the riffled buckets known from e.g. the graves from Bucovice, grave 6 in Šitborice, in Baumgarten a. d. M., in the material from the disturbed graves in Abrahám etc. that stand forth prominently. The most outstanding collection of this horizon is represented by a new discovery from Dvory nad Žitavou in south Slovakia, which, apart from a late dipper with a circular cut-out in the handle disc (Eggers 142) and a collection of strainer and ladle, has contained a well-preserved riffled bucket of the Gile type (Eggers 44) and two glass drinking cups on feet with ground oval facettes, Eggers type 187. We of course come across riffled buckets also in the provincial borderland, e.g. in Brigetium where these are exemplified by several characteristic handle - attachments.

Bucovice

 

Mušov
Šitborice
Other peculiar types of this new wave of import, e.g. the latest variants of situla-shaped buckets (Eggers 27-29) characterized by wholly schematized mask attachments, are also known. The parts belonging to these are e.g. handle rests from grave 8 in Šitborice, in Walltersdorf a. d. March in the Austrian Morava River basin, or from z Bratislava. Moreover a mask rest of Goldenitz type bucket was discovered in a very late find circumstances also in grave 174 from Ockov. Of course it is impossible to leave out the part of Eggers 27 bucket with a deflected lower part and prints of three hemispherical bases or feet that has appeared in a fragmentary condition among other examples of bronze utensils in the so-called royal grave of Mušov.


 
Šitborice

 
Šitborice

 
Mušov
Zohor
Other, less attractive forms that were taken by this powerful wave of import also belong to the peculiar types of bronze vessels which have got to the zone north of the central Danube in the period following the Marcomannian wars. These are e.g. the late so-called østland barrel-shaped buckets with iron neck sleeves and iron handles of Eggers 42 type (Mušov-the royal grave, Hanfthal, Devínska Nová Ves), as well as late collections of ladles and strainers.


 
Mušov

 
Mikulov

The early variants of big cauldrons of the so-called Westland type, especially the exemplar from the royal grave of Mušov equipped with four additionally mounted busts of barbarians with a characteristic hair style, the so-called Suebian bun, may be considered unique in the area to the north of the middle Danube. The evidence of the late dating of these products originating from the provincial workshops, probably after year 150, is, apart from other things, a practically identical, but regrettably only fragmentary cauldron from the cremation grave 6 in Mikulov, dated by a germanic type of a belt endings to the late B2 stage B2 or rather stage B2/C1 (180-200).
Distribution map of riffled buckets; other bronze vessels
Cartographic spread of finds with imported bronze vessels of B2/C1 stage as riffled buckets shows a dense pattern not only in the north Danubian stripe but it stretches as far as the Baltic region. It has probably reached this area not only by the so-called sea route through the Danish islands but as the situation in the Danubian basin shows, also from the south through the so-called Amber trade-route. It was routed through the main take-off centres of Przeworsk culture, then to the sites of Wielbar culture as far as the mouth of Vistula, where we find another strong cumulation. Here again not only the riffled buckets emerge but also the peculiar riffled bowls with omega-shaped handles Eggers 77, the most advanced forms of buckets with mask attachments Eggers 27-28, late collections of ladles and strainers etc.

Basically it is possible to agree with the opinions of the authors who relate this unprecedented flow of Roman conveniences into the barbarian sphere to the situation that has occurred after the Marcomannic wars. Especially in the barbarian regions adjacent to the Roman border on the middle Danube a lively trading and barter contact with the provinces has developed until the Severian period. The causes of the unprecedented advancement have not only consisted in the internal changes of the barbarian society but also in the designed policy of Rome in the period after Commodus peace. This policy was characterized by a support of the pro-Roman groups within the barbarian society, but above all an effort to secure a safe Roman border by means of bribery, subsidies and other benefits to the Germanic chiefs, and obviously also a wide opening of trade contacts as it is evidenced by a mass tide of samian ware of the late Antonine and Severian dating. Much as it is possible to explain the spreading of bronze vessels, Roman utensils and other luxurious products to the distant corners of Przeworsk culture and the regions on the shores of the Baltic sea as a result of an intra-Germanic barter occurring among the individual barbarian centres and the consequent redistribution, the distribution of the Roman pottery has obviously still remained in the hands of the Roman traders.

A fundamental change has been the phase starting with the thirties of the 3rd century when the Roman Empire from the Upper Germanic – Raetian frontier to the provinces in the east of Europe has been shaken by violent attacks of the barbarians caused by migration waves springing from within the non-Roman Germania. These have mainly resulted in an interrupted import of products from the more westerly provinces into the central Danubian sphere and further to the barbarian take-off regions to the north of the Danube. The last reverberations of the western import of luxurious bronze vessels are the Hemmoor buckets from the graves of Krakovany-Stráže, which, together with a terra sigillata bowl by the late Rheinzabern master Regulinus, fall outside of the chronologic scope of the theme.

 

AUCR