Dacian bracelets


The Dacian bracelets are bracelets associated with the ancient people known as the Dacians, a distinct branch of the Thracians. These bracelets were used as ornaments, currency, high rank insignia and votive offerings Their ornamentations consist of many elaborate regionally distinct styles. Bracelets of various types were worn by Dacians, but the most characteristic piece of their jewelry was the large multi-spiral bracelets; engraved with palmettes towards the ends and terminating in the shape of an animal head, usually that of a snake.

Dacians background

The Dacians lived in a very large territory, stretching from the Balkans to the northern Carpathians and from the Black Sea and the Tyras River to the Tisa plain, and at times as far as the Middle Danube.
Dacian civilization went through several stages of development, from the Thracian stage in the Bronze Age to the Geto-Dacian stage in the classical period that lasted from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. The Thracian stage is associated with the emergence of Thracian populations from the fusion of the local Chalcolithic stock with the incoming peoples of the transitional Indo-Europeanization Period. By the time of Bronze Age, and during the transitional period to the Iron Age, the cultures of this Carpathian area may be attributed to proto-Thracian and even Thracian populations—ancestors of the peoples known to Herodotus as the Agathyrsae and the Getae, and to the Romans as the Dacians. The culture of these nuclear groups were typified by military aristocracies.
In these early times the most specific motifs of the bracelets are the spiral and the horn, used to provide the warrior with both physical and deistic protection.
  • The spiral motif is associated with solar cults. It might have been an inheritance of the local Chalcolithic culture, or an accentuated Mycenaean influence to the north of the Danube.
  • The horn motifs, Boarta ) might have been brought by the intrusive stockbreeders.
The 5th century BC is associated with the Dacian stage of art and it is the time of the La Tène period when Dacian culture flourished, especially in Transylvanian citadels. The Dacian art of Iron Age II has all the characteristics of a mixed style, with its roots in the Hallstatt culture. It is characterized by an accentuated geometry, a curvilinear style and plant-based motifs. At this time, besides their older local types, Dacians made all kind of bracelets that were common in the Roman Empire. But, there was a constant preference of Dacians for decorating the silver spiral bracelets with animals protome such as snakes and wolves.
The period of time between the 2nd century BC and 1st century AD is termed "Classic Dacian". At this time the Dacians developed the art of silverworking, and a style which may be described specifically as the Dacian style. It consists of older traditional local elements, dating back to Iron Age I, but also of elements of Celtic, Scythian, Thracian, and especially Greek origins. The bracelets of this art-form include silver arm rings, with ends in the shape of stylized heads of animals, and heavy spiral-shaped armlets with gilded ends adorned with palm-leaves, and ending in animal-heads.
The Classic Dacian period ends when parts of the Dacian State were reduced to a Roman province by the Roman Empire under Trajan, partly in order to seize its gold mines. After the Second Dacian War Romans claimed they had looted 165 tonnes of gold and 300 tonnes of silver in a single haul, as estimated by modern historians. Its existence in only one spot, suggests that there was a central control of precious metal circulation. According to the majority of historians this sort of monopoly of precious metals, and the Roman's forcible collection of Dacian gold objects, explains the scarcity of archaeological discoveries consisting of golden ornaments for the period between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD; however, the existence of the "Treasures of Dacian kings" has been confirmed by the latest archaeological finds of large gold spiral-shaped bracelets from Sarmizegetusa. It seems that the Romans did not find the entire royal treasure.

Bracelets in the transition period North Thracian and proto-Dacian

Types of bracelets in the Bronze Age and First Iron Age

Numerous bracelets were made of bronze and gold and many of them have been found in Transylvania, near the sources of the ores used in their manufacture. They include the following types:
  • Unequally spiraled armlet made of bronze, worn on the forearm that is also called "arm guard", e.g., those found at Apa.
  • Equally spiraled bracelet, used frequently in the early Hallstatt, e.g., Pecica.
  • Open bracelet with widened ends, made of double gold wire, e.g., Ostrovu Mare.
  • Bracelet with spiralled or volutes endings, e.g., Firighiaz/Firiteaz, Sacoșu Mare.
  • Open bracelet decorated with incisions, with each end coiled in double opposed volutes, e.g., Sacoșu Mare and Hodiș.
  • Overlapped ends, rhombic cross section, e.g., Sacoșu Mare and Șmig. The treasures from Șmig, Sibiu County and from Țufalău contained also raw gold, thus suggesting the bracelets had been locally made.
Some bronze bracelet types of the Bronze Age continue throughout all the Late Bronze Age and Hallstatt phases.

Various bracelets

Archaeological finds include two gold cylindrical muffs, a characteristic type of the middle and late Bronze Age and widespread throughout Central Europe. Two bronze specimens, both similar to the gold ones, have been discovered at Cehăluț. The open cuff found at Hinova, and dated to the 12th century BC, is one of the largest gold bracelets of the proto-Dacians found to date. It is made of large gold sheet of in weight and decorated with ten buttons fixed into holes, five on each end.
Bracelets from Băleni, Galați are particularly interesting because of their geometric décor, bands of right or oblique lines. They all have a green patina ranging from dark green to dull green, bluish green, bluish gloss.
The fragmentary iron bracelet from the cremation cemetery found at Bobda is among the few unequivocally dated iron objects equivalent to Hallstatt A 1–2 in this region.
A bracelet with snake-shape endings had been found at the Hallstattian necropolis in Ferigile.

Șpălnaca (Hopârta)

The bracelets from Șpălnaca are dated to Bronze Age IV and have decorations of geometric characters. Although not directly influenced by the Hallstatt styles, the objects from Șpălnaca pre-date the later tendencies for geometric surface decoration of chiseled or engraved lines. Such discoveries at Șpălnaca, Gușterița, and Dipșa show that bronze craftsmanship still flourished in the North Thracians from the Carpathian-Black Sea and Danube areas at the beginning of the Iron Age.

Multi-spiral types

This type of Dacian bracelet originated in the Bronze Age. The hoard found in 1980 at Hinova includes two such bracelets. Multi-spiral types can be dated to the early Hallstatt period and comprises also open and closed-end bracelets. One of the spiral bracelets from Hinova weighed 261.55 grams and the other 497.13 grams. The former, made of a thinner and narrower gold leaf, had a decoration consisting of two furrows cut along the edges and separated by a median crest. A similar decoration, of a furrow along the median line, decorates a metal bracelet from the deposit found at Sânnicolau Român, dated to the second period of the Bronze Age.
Finds from Dacia include spiral bracelets made of double gold wire, the largest of which weighed nearly a hundred grams. Gold spiral bracelets of this type have been discovered in Transylvania and Banat, spanning a long period which begins with the very late phase of the Bronze Age and ends with the middle Hallstatt. Similar pieces made of bronze were discovered in the deposit of bronze objects at Sacot-Slatioara.
The multi-spiral bracelet type spans a long period of time that includes all Hallstattian stages.

Spiral motif

The traditional ornamental motifs of bracelets, the meander and the "whirling" spiral, are thought to follow the spread of a cult of the sun, their decorations suggesting the rotation of the sun on the heavenly vault. This motif is recognized as one of the parallels between the artifact decorations of this North Thracian group and the ornamentations from the Mycenaean Shaft Graves. It is found in both the Aegean and east-central Europe from the Neolithic onwards.
Scholars opinions are divided on the source of these comparable traits. One opinion states that the North Thracian spiral motifs originate from the local Eneolithic antecedents rather than from any imported influence. There are specific forms widespread in northern Thrace that are unlikely inspired by the Mycenaeans. It is also argued that these motifs apparently did not appear in the intervening territory of South Thrace. With North Thracians, the spiral motif appears prominently in the form of massive armguard terminals, offering physical as well as apotropaic protection. Hoddinott states that the twin spiral terminals, as on the bowl from Biia, would have been a natural development; either from a local single armlet type or from an Unetice spectacle pendant.
The other opinion attributes the spiral motif to a northward spread of Mycenaean influence. It is argued that the spiral of the Neolithic period disappeared during the transitional period towards the Bronze Age, and even during the Early Bronze Age; therefore, starting from the Middle Bronze Age the spiral would occur because of a Mycenaean sway to the north of the Danube. These comparable features might have occurred because of commercial relations between the Mycenaeans and Dacians relating to the gold mines of Transylvania.

Spiral ending types

Sacoșu Mare
Whatever may have been the origin of the spiral motif, the craftsmen of the late Carpatho-Danubian Bronze Age IV and Hallstatt A had a marked preference for bracelets with a spiral ending, as found at Sacoșu Mare. The same décor featuring the coiled disk endings of the single- or double-spiral bracelets is found on contemporary ceramics. There is also a striking resemblance between the gold bracelets from Sacoșu Mare, from Firighiaz, and from other locations in Transylvania that suggest a spiritual affinity in the proto-Dacian world.
The hoard from Sacoșu Mare consists of bracelets and jewelry dated to the 13th to 12th centuries BC. The golden bracelets, around, have open ends of approximately in diameter. Some terminate with convex volute ends, while others have double convex volute ends. The bracelet's bar is decorated with engraved rows of diamonds flanked by dotted lines.