The Bronze Age

The bronze hoard from Nové Zámky-Nyárhíd is among the most valuable groups in this part of the collection. It is accompanied by Early and Middle Bronze Age ornaments, weapons and everyday objects. Not everything was made of metal: bone and antler appear alongside copper and bronze. A new material did not immediately displace those used before it.

Many of the displayed objects were recovered from graves. Others came from the fortified settlement of the Maďarovce culture at Nitriansky Hrádok. Pottery from a burial mound at Kolta represents the grave goods of a person interpreted as a chief. Decorated vessels of the Litzenkeramik type came from Mužla-Čenkov.

A reconstructed cremation burial from Salka illustrates the funerary practice of the Tumulus culture. A separate reconstructed burial of the Kalenderberg culture from Nové Zámky-Ragoňa belongs to the Early Iron Age. Both concern cremation, but not the same community or period. Pottery, ornaments and the arrangement of the grave matter as much here as the metal itself.