Das Bleigewicht aus dem Hofareal der Fürstin von Vix

Abstract

The Lead Weight from the Courtyard of the Lady of Vix

The Mont Lassois near Vix, Dép. Côte d’Or, as well as the Heuneburg, counts as one of the best researched princely seats in the early Celtic western Hallstatt zone. In 1953 the late Hallstatt grave of Vix was discovered. The old excavations (1930-1974) have been reactivated by the German-French research project »Celtic Princely Seats West of the Rhine« (1991-1997) and the French PCR-project (Projet collectif de recherche) »Vix and its Environment« (since 2002) with the participation of the universities of Dijon, Kiel, Vienna and Zurich. During the investigation of the late Hallstatt courtyard of the Lady of Vix on the high plateau of the Mont Lassois, there was found in the northern palisade ditch a piriform lead object weighing 1862 g and having a flat base, an iron suspension eye and an iron hook. Cast in the cire perdue method, it was obviously a metrological weight, i. e. a weight for a balance or weighing-machine, attached to the end of the beam of a steelyard with a variable scale. By virtue of its heavy weight, it was certainly not used as a fine weight for precious metals but purely for weighing larger amounts in the fields of artisan or agricultural production. The metrology emphasises the state of development and organisation which the Celtic principalities had reached by the end of the Hallstatt period. The weights found within the territory of the late Hallstatt princely seats of Vix, Heuneburg and Bourges (Port Sec Sud) indicate a supra-regionally valid system of weights with a basic unit of 300 g within the western Hallstatt zone. This would seem to provide a further argument for these three princely seats having already achieved a stage of urban organisation by the early Celtic period.