A rare Bronze Age mold has been discovered under a warehouse in southeastern Moravia, Czech Republic. It looked exactly like a rectangular stone when a homeowner in the village of Murkovci first saw it while gardening in 2007, but when experts from the Moravian Museum’s Institute of Archeology removed it and examined it, they discovered a very precisely modeled negative impression of a spear on one side of the stone. This is a casting mold, also known as a matrix, used to make spears 3,000 years ago.
Two of these molds will be used together to make a spear. The flat sides with negative impressions will be soldered face to face and connected with copper wire. A casting cover was inserted into the opening to create a cavity for the hilt to be inserted later. It was erected vertically and the bronze was cast into the mold.
It was not produced locally, or indeed anywhere within the borders of the modern-day Czech Republic. It is a tuff, a volcanic rock native to the Carpathian Mountains. Comparisons with other stones suggest that it came from the southeastern slopes of the Bakk Mountains, in what is today eastern Hungary. The design of the spear, particularly the ribs on the blade and the sharp ribs on the sheath, is typical of the Carpathian region.
The researchers also analyzed the marks left in the stone using a spectrometer to determine the composition of the metal used in the casting. The tests revealed copper and tin, the two main components of bronze. […]
While the stone itself doesn’t look particularly impressive, it tells an important story. This suggests that weapons were already being produced on a large scale in Moravia three thousand years ago, using technology that came from far away.
