Abstract
WHAT is undoubtedly the most important collection of prehistoric antiquities ever to come under the hammer is to be offered for sale at the American Art Galleries, New York, in the late autumn. The collection of some 20,000 bronze and iron objects, known as the “treasures of Carniola”, is to be sold by order of the Duchess Marie Antoinette of Mecklenburg. It is her private property and was formed as the result of ten year's excavation in Carniola, about 200 miles south-east of Hallstadt, where some 1,300 tombs were opened; but it also includes material from a number of smaller sites outside Carniola. The excavations were made under an exclusive licence granted to the Duchess. As the antiquities were obtained at the very heart of the region in which the Hallstadt Iron Age civilisation developed, its importance for the archaeologist is manifest. Yet until now, little has been known of it. The finds range in time from the finest period of the Hallstadt culture down to the beginning of the Roman Provincial civilisation and thus cover a most important period in the development of European peoples. Although all the objects in the collection have been photographed by the authorities of the Swiss Federal Museum in Zurich before shipment to the United States, it will be little short of a calamity that such a collection should be dispersed. Its unique interest and scientific value lie in the fact that as a whole it represents with a measure of completeness the development of culture in one area over a considerable period of time, thus illustrating important phases of transition in European prehistory. Even in the unlikely event that the collection should be purchased as a whole, its divorce from its country of origin, or at least from Europe, is to be deplored. The fate of the collection illustrates once more the danger of private ownership of antiquities which are primarily national possessions but none the less of vital interest to the whole world of archaeological science.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sale of Iron Age Antiquities. Nature 132, 540 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132540b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132540b0