12. 7. 2010 The treasure contained 3.5 kilograms of bronze objects

Jaroslav Kaláb and Miroslav Popelka. These are the names of two amateur searchers who discovered a bronze treasure near Olšan in the Prostějov region in 2010. They went on regular walks with metal detectors.

The bronze treasure contained axes, sickles, ornaments and various fragments. The avid searchers found the treasure by accident. One of them was studying archaeology, so they called in experts to avoid damaging the site.

The artifacts were spread out by farm equipment over an area of three hundred square meters. "We go out with a detector regularly, but this was an accident. A friend of mine found a silver coin, so we came here to look again," Popelka explained why they went to the site near Olšany.

The treasure was originally believed to be in a large ceramic container, as several objects were lying on the ceramic bottom. However, the container was not preserved in its entirety. Apparently it was damaged by agricultural machinery.

Pavel Fojtík from the Institute of Archaeological Heritage Care in Prostějov praised the searchers at the time. He said that the pair had managed to find the original place where the bronze objects were stored.

"It was the bottom of a ceramic vessel, on which several bronzes were still lying. This is the so-called fragmentary depot, which contains just parts of the destroyed or damaged items. In total, there were 88 objects weighing 3.5 kilograms," Fojtík outlined.

The objects are about three thousand years old. The find dates back to the Younger Bronze Age. According to Fojtík, this was the third similar depot in the cadastre in question, so the discovery of the treasure did not surprise him.

"The first one belonged to the Únětice culture and is therefore much older than the current find. The second one was two needles, which belong to approximately the same period, maybe a little older," the archaeologist recalled.

Fojtík himself found earrings and a precious stone in an eleventh-century grave in Olšany. The researchers eventually discovered several graves. According to Fojtík, the direct ancestors of today's inhabitants were probably buried there. The first written mention of Olšany dates back to 1141.

Sources: www.tn.cz, www.denik.cz, www.rozhlas.cz
Editor's note: from amateur searchers to two professional archaeologists :)