Elderly farmer found two valuable Roman objects in her corn field in Serbia: One thing caught her attention

Photo: Tanjug/Dusan Anicic

Back in 1955, Mirjana Manojkovic Marijanski, curator of the Vojvodina Museum, received a phone call from the town of Sid. Dr. Nada Acimovic, a doctor from the nearby village of Berkasovo, excitedly informed her that local resident Angelina Vrkatic, while working in her corn field, dug up two golden helmets.

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A team of curators from the museum arrived in the village the very next morning and found two very well preserved Roman helmets - which would later be determined to have originated from the 4th century AD. The object were held in the hands of the elderly farmer, who put on her very best clothes for the occasion. Subsequent excavation at the site revealed that the helmets were a part of a storage area that also contained two silver belt chains, one silver sheet tube, one silver shoulder knuckle, several iron fragments and gilded silver sheets.

Angelina said that she had noticed a few years earlier that something was glittering in the ground, but was convinced those were unexploded shells that were so many in that area at the time, because of the vicinity of the site of the great WW2 Sremki Front battle. That's why she didn't cultivate that part of the field or approach it, and she was afraid to report it to the authorities for fear that they would block off her entire land until the suspected ordnance was cleared.

But after heavy rains, the shiny objects became more visible and when Angelina approached them, she realized that they were helmets. Once she washed them, she saw that there was gold on them. She consulted with a goldsmith who told her that this was gilding and that she would not benefit much from it, but that a museum would. Then she turned to her cousin Nada Acimovic, who informed the authorities from the provincial Museum of Vojvodina, and that's how the helmets ended up in that institution.

The helmets were made of wrought iron, coated with a thin silver sheet, and it is assumed that they had a leather lining inside. The more luxurious of the two is additionally decorated with emerald imitations and semi-precious stones onyx and chalcedony, fitted in glass paste and placed in differently shaped sockets.

Of particular importance are the inscriptions in Greek and Latin, regarding which there are numerous interpretations and polemics among experts, but almost everyone agrees that the expensive craftsmanship idicates that the owners of these helmets must have been persons from high Roman society, prominent military leaders, people holding ranking position in the army, or even rulers themselves.

The less lavish helmet from Berkasovo bears the inscription VICIT [LIC]INIANA, which helped archaeologists date it to the beginning of the 4th century, when the future emperor Constantine the Great and his opponent Licinius fought over the Roman throne. From 308, when Licinius gained the rank of Augustus, the two emperors ruled together, only to soon begin a bitter struggle for the throne which ended in Licinius' defeat and execution.

According to one interpretation, the helmets could have been buried during the retreat of Licinius' troops towards Sirmium (present-day Sremska Mitrovica) i.e. after the battle that took place near Cibal (today's Vinkovci). According to another interpretation, based on a later inscription in Greek, the helmets could have been in use for a long time and then buried at any point during the turbulent 4th century in the Roman province Pannonia Secunda.

Realizing the value and possibilities for exploration offered by objects of this type, in 2007 the Museum of Vojvodina purchased another gilded helmet from the 4th century, similar to the less decorated one from Berkasovo. Very fragmented, it was discovered in the vicinity of the village of Jarak, 17 kilometers southeast of Sirmium.

Parts of the helmet were discovered by an unnamed person in a field, inside a small gray ceramic jug. Before turning to the experts of the museum, he straightened and glued pieces of the gilded silver sheet metal onto a cardboard base, not knowing their function and purpose.

Conservation and reconstruction represented a long and painstaking process, and the less lavish helmet from Berkasovo served as a model for reconstruction. The helmet from Jarak was shown for the first time together with two helmets from Berkasovo during the "Late Antiquity Helmet from Jarak" exibition held in 2009.

(Telegraf.rs)