MIDDLE BRONZE AGE JEWELRY TORC NECKLACE RING FROM ANCIENT GERMANY *EB005

Product Description

A classic object of personal adornment and modest wealth, this is a rare unbroken bronze torque necklace collar ring from the Middle Bronze Age of Central Europe.  It was originally found in Germany and features excellent preservation with intact decorative designs.  European Bronze Age jewelry pieces like this are not common with torque neck rings and larger pieces being far more rare than simple finger rings since the necklace required more bronze to make and greater work to hand-fabricate versus simple casting.

This neck ring features wonderful decorative intervals throughout the entire length terminating to two decorative open ends.  It was hand-wrought which would have given it strength and spring tension, allowing it to have been twisted to put on and take off (not safe to do now due to its age).  Aside from the minor loss to the center, it is complete and in exquisite preservation with a beautiful green bronze patina that European Bronze Age metal objects are so treasured for.

Cleaned and treated in our lab to protect and preserve the integrity of the metal and allow safe handling.    Be wary of modern copies that plague the antiquity market today.  We subject every artifact we offer for sale to rigorous inspection and authentication in our own museum lab facility. 

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HISTORY

The Tumulus culture dominated Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600 to 1200 BC).  It was the descendant of the Unetice culture.  Its heartland was the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture besides Bavaria and Württemberg.  It was succeeded by the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture.  The Tumulus culture was eminently a warrior society, which expanded with new chiefdoms eastward into the Carpathian Basin (up to the river Tisza), and northward into Polish and Central European Únětice territories. The culture's dispersed settlements centred in fortified structures.

As the name implies, the Tumulus culture is distinguished by the practice of burying the dead beneath burial mounds (tumuli or kurgans).  The Tumulus culture was prevalent during the Middle Bronze Age.  Tumuli have been used elsewhere in Europe from the Stone Age to the Iron Age yet, the term "Tumulus culture" specifically refers to the South German variant of the Bronze Age.