Graves of the Great Moravian Empire Studied in Czech Republic

News February 19, 2020

(Courtesy Jakub Langr/Moravian Museum in Brno)
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Czech Republic Earrings
(Courtesy Jakub Langr/Moravian Museum in Brno)

BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC—Radio Prague International reports that seven graves dated to the second half of the ninth century A.D. have been unearthed at a large cemetery site in Staré Město, near the town of Uherské Hradiště. The cemetery dates to the time of the Great Moravian Empire, a state made up of Slavic tribes that covered the regions of what are now the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Serbia from about A.D. 830 to the turn of the century. The graves are thought to hold the remains of girls and young women from noble families. “We also found female jewelry in each of the graves, earrings crafted by granulation,” said Lukĕk Galuška of the Moravian Museum. “It is the most typical female jewelry from the era of Great Moravia. Most of them are silver and some of them are gilded.” Galuška and his colleagues plan to analyze DNA samples from the bones. To read about the 1,000-year-old skeleton of a warrior that has long been at the center of Czech national identity, go to “The Man in Prague Castle.”

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