A Bronze Age hoard weighing 35 pounds and containing 310 objects was found in Klein Neundorf, Gorlitz, dating to the 9th century B.C. The hoard is the largest known in Upper Lusatia and the second-largest in Saxony. Bronze objects from the site were first found in 1900 when children unearthed three bronze daggers, and museum holdings grew in subsequent years. In August 2023 a planned excavation involving the Saxon State Office for Archaeology and volunteer metal detectorists located scattered and clustered artifacts. Excavation continued from September 2023 through April 2024. The assemblage includes tools, weapons, jewelry, garment fittings, cast-cake ingots, and a preponderance of sickles (136).
A Bronze Age hoard comprising 35 pounds of bronze in 310 objects has been discovered in the Klein Neundorf suburb of Gorlitz in eastern Germany. Dating to the 9th century B.C., it is the largest Bronze Age hoard ever found in Upper Lusatia and the second-largest in all of Saxony. Bronze Age objects had been found at the site since 1900, when children harvesting potatoes stumbled on three bronze daggers.
The objects had been in the museum collection for more than a century when Dr. Jasper von Richthofen, the director of the Gorlitz Collections, hatched a plan to excavate the find site for the first time in August of 2023, with the collaboration of the Saxon State Office for Archaeology and volunteer metal detectorists. It was one of the metal detectorists who made the initial breakthrough, finding bronze sickle fragments on the western edge of the exploration area.
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