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The paper presents the archaeological find of a medieval sword recovered from the riverbank deposits of the Voglajna near Bežigrad, northeast of Celje (Slovenia). The relatively well-preserved sword with a length of 95.2 cm and a mass of 765 g is part of the original collection of the Celje Regional Museum, to which it came before 1889. The shape and metric characteristics of the blade with a relatively wide fuller (Oakeshott’s Type X or Geibig’s Variant 5b) and the hilt with a short, straight crossguard and almond-shaped/lenticular pommel (Geibig’s combination Type 16 / Var. I (16-15-9-12)) show it to be an early example of swords with pommels of Oakeshott’s Type A, dating to the 11th or the first half of the 12th century. One side of the blade bears the remains of a 20 cm long sequence of inlaid iron marks, which remain indecipherable due to corrosion. The harmony of the parts seems to indicate a preserved original design, presumably produced by one of the sword workshops on the Middle Rhine. The findspot of the sword in the vicinity of Bežigrad, a topographically exposed and strategically important promontory near the intersection of the routes connecting Styria and Carniola, alerts to the possible existence of a military post that supplemented the control functions of the presumed early stronghold of the Margraves of the Savinja March on Zgornji (Stari) Grad in Celje. The find context of the sword places it in the predominant category of water finds, but the internal evidence (condition after conservation) of the weapon and the available data on the particular circumstances of the find do not provide sufficient support to explain the background of its sinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of the rescue archaeological excavations at the prehistoric stone mound in Drinovci (Grude Municipality, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina). The excavations documented a total of five graves that can be placed within two time horizons: the prehistoric (graves 1, 2, 5) and the medieval (graves 3, 4). Grave 1, while badly damaged, was the only one with any finds: a tendril made of spirally coiled double (“infinite”) gold wire, and a deformed specimen with the same typological characteristics in its immediate vicinity. They are the oldest known and published gold finds from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The best analogies to the gold objects from Drinovci come from the middle and early stages of the Late Bronze Age in a wider Central European area. These widely distributed objects show that this cultural region, or its local elites, participated in the already active supra-regional network of exchange and communication. Moreover, the excavations in the space between the graves found potsherds of prehistoric features, largely devoid of narrowly identifiable typological elements. The area of the excavated mound was again used as a burial site in the late Middle Ages, which is a welldocumented but unfortunately still poorly researched practice of this cultural region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lead seal of Michael VIII Palaiologos found among several medieval artifacts during the excavation of the site Gorno Gradishte, v. Dolno Gratche, Kochani, its bearer and its location were an occasion for re-immersion in the turbulent waters of the 13th century and an attempt to shed additional light on its numerous and in places, dark layers. This paper tries to give a wider archaeological context to the seal and at the same time, to insert that archaeological context in the historical reading of the man whose name will remain engraved in the annals of history as the one who managed to resurrect Byzantium and his connection with this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]