On three spearheads with decorated blades from the south-eastern periphery of the Alps

Abstract

The contribution presents three stray finds of iron spearheads with decorated blades; one from Britof near Kranj and the other two from the riverbed of the Ljubljanica in the western part of the Ljubljansko barje (Slovenia). The spearhead from Britof has close parallels in Pomerania and the Scandinavian Baltic Isles, indicating its most probable origin in the area inhabited by the ‘East Germanic’ cultural groups of the late pre-Roman Iron Age. The two spearheads from the Ljubljanica also rank among rare forms, with parallels known across wide regions between the south-western edges of the Alps and the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. Both are most likely local ‘Celtic’ products, with decoration again close to that on spearheads from the ‘Germanic’ milieu. These exceptional artefacts might perhaps be associated with the movements of Germanic peoples between the late 2nd and the mid-1st century BC.