Larger than Life

In 1896 a remarkable hoard was discovered near Ommerschans in the eastern Netherlands that included a spectacular object: a giant bronze sword. It was obtained by the landowner and kept by a forester, until it was first documented by archaeologist J.H. Holwerda in 1927. For over 85 years it remained in private ownership and inaccessible to science. Over time this sword, or rather dirk, would prove not to be a singular exception. Instead it is now part of a select family of six discovered in England (Oxborough and Rudham), France (Plougrescant and Beaune) and the Netherlands (Jutphaas and Ommerschans). In 2017 the Ommerschans hoard was obtained by the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, bringing all six into the public domain.

The Plougrescant-Ommerschans type swords are some of the most spectacular finds of the European Bronze Age. They are extremely rare, beautiful, expertly crafted and too large and heavy to wield as weapons. Furthermore, their strong resemblance seems to have been crucial, as all six are extremely alike in design, decoration, metal composition and size (with the exception of Jutphaas). But why?

This book aims to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding this exceptional group of larger-than-life Bronze Age blades. It offers a detailed overview of the discovery and find context of the Ommerschans hoard, as well as a physical description and analysis of all finds. Also included is a comparative overview of the other five swords, including the primary publication of the Rudham dirk. The findings are subsequently interpreted focusing on their contextualisation within Bronze Age deposition practices, the importance of the visual cohesion of this group, the power and role of aggrandized objects and their potential purpose within the social and metaphysical realm of Bronze Age communities.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
Luc Amkreutz and David Fontijn

Part I The Ommerschans hoard. History and context

2. The one that got away: The Ommerschans hoard – found, lost and found again
Luc Amkreutz

3. ‘A nasty den of ghostly apparitions’: The site in its natural and archaeological context
Joris Brattinga and Luc Amkreutz

4. The hoard with dirk from Ommerschans: Reconstruction of the place of deposition
Corrie Bakels

Part II The Ommerschans finds. Description and object research

5. The Ommerschans sword: A description
Luc Amkreutz and David Fontijn

6. The making of the dirk: What can chemical analysis and imaging techniques tell us?
Ineke Joosten, Luc Megens, Tonny Beentjes, Luc Amkreutz, Yueer Li and Lambert van Eijck

7. Replicating the Ommerschans sword: Interview with a bronze smith
Karsten Wentink, Luc Amkreutz and Jeroen Zuiderwijk

8. Not at all random: Description of the small objects in the Ommerschans hoard
Luc Amkreutz and David Fontijn

9. About the great little objects in the Ommerschans hoard: A study into the metal composition, corrosion and wear
Bertil van Os, Liesbeth Theunissen, Ineke Joosten and Luc Megens

10. Shine on you crazy diamond: Functional analysis of the stone and flint tools from the Ommerschans hoard
Karsten Wentink, Annelou van Gijn and Ineke Joosten

Part III Interpreting aggrandised objects and deposition. Origins, parallels and perspectives

11. Does size matter? The Jutphaas find – a dirk-sized ceremonial Bronze Age object and its aggrandised counterparts
David Fontijn and Luc Amkreutz

12. The French dirks: Plougrescant and Beaune
Rolande Simon-Millot and Léonard Dumont

13. British ceremonial weapons revisited: A new Plougrescant-Ommerschans dirk from East Rudham, Norfolk, and its typological, geochemical and landscape context
Stuart Needham and Neil Wilkin

14. A comparative metallurgical analysis of the six dirks of Plougrescant-Ommerschans type
Liesbeth Theunissen and Bertil van Os

15. Unfinished business? Blunt questions about the Caistor-St-Edmund–Melle rapiers
Eugène Warmenbol

16. Aggrandised axes at the end of the Early Bronze Age in Central Europe: The hoard from Kläden in Saxony-Anhalt
Regine Maraszek

17. Strange by design: The Tollebeek spearhead revised
Valerio Gentile and Bastiaan Steffens

Part IV Synthesis

18. Religion and metal rush: Deposition of valuables from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Scandinavia
Helle Vandkilde

19. Larger than life: Interpreting the Ommerschans hoard
Luc Amkreutz and David Fontijn

List of authors

Luc Amkreutz (1978) studied Prehistory at the University of Leiden. In 2004 he gained his MA with a study of the earliest farmers in the Netherlands (Linearbandkeramik) and their settlements along the river Meuse. In 2013 he was awarded his doctorate for his thesis ‘Persistent Traditions: A long-term perspective on communities in the process of Neolithisation in the Lower Rhine Area (6000-2500 cal BC)’, within the Malta Harvest project ‘From Hardinxveld to Noordhoorn – from Forager to Farmer’. He focused particularly on the socio-cultural changes in small-scale communities during the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture.

Since 2008 Amkreutz has been the curator of Prehistory at the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (RMO). Apart from numerous exhibitions, he worked on the 2011 new permanent exhibition ‘Archaeology of the Netherlands’, offering a fresh perspective on 300,000 years of the country’s history. He also co-created the exhibition ‘Cutting Edge Past’ in 2016 which ultimately led to the acquisition of the Ommerschans dirk in 2017. Amkreutz has conducted wide-ranging research including field projects into Early Neolithic farmers and the investigations of burial mounds. In 2016 he was awarded an NWO Museum grant to investigate the ‘Ancient Europe’ collection of the museum.

Currently, he is involved in researching the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Prehistory of Doggerland. In 2021 he worked on the ‘Doggerland. Lost World under the North Sea’ exhibition in the RMO and co-edited the accompanying book, which was shortlisted for the EAA Book Prize 2023. He is also part of the NWO funded ‘Resurfacing Doggerland’ project. In 2022 he co-edited a volume on the oldest Linearbandkeramik settlement of the Netherlands at Elsloo and works on several projects involving the Neolithic in the Lower Rhine area and Northwest Europe in general.

Amkreutz was appointed professor of Public Archaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University in 2022.

David Fontijn (1971-2023) was professor in the Archaeology of Early Europe at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden, the Netherlands. His research dealt with the early agrarian societies of Europe from prehistory up until the early historical period, with a particular focus on the Bronze and (early) Iron Age, the exchange and deposition of metalwork and the archaeology of so-called ritual landscapes. He led the NWO-VICI project ‘Economies of Destruction’ investigating the puzzling destruction of valuable objects in Bronze Age Europe (2015-).

He graduated and wrote his PhD-thesis at Leiden University, both theses were marked cum laude and both were awarded the W.A. van Es Prize for Dutch Archaeology (1996 and 2003). His book ‘Sacrificial landscapes’ was also awarded the Praemium Erasmianum Study Prize (2003). He had a short-list nomination for best teacher of Leiden University in 2005 and won this LSR Teaching award in 2008. His project ‘Ancestral Mounds’ received the SIKB Prize for best archaeological research team in 2009 and a book resulting from it was received by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 2012. Fontijn was senior research fellow in the excellence cluster ‘TOPOI’ in Berlin, where he worked at the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute DAI (2009-2010). From 2013-2016, he was director of Research at the Faculty of Archaeology.

Recent books are ‘Living near the dead’ (2010, editor and co-author), ‘Iron Age Echoes’ (co-editor with Q. Bourgeois and A. Louwen and co-author), ‘Transformation Through Destruction’ (co-editor with S. van der Vaart and R. Jansen and co-author), and ‘Beyond Barrows’ (co-editor with A. Louwen, S. van der Vaart, and K. Wentink and co-author). The volume ‘Death Revisited’ (co-editor with A. Louwen and co-author) came out in 2018, and he published an acclaimed book on deposition with Routledge entitled ‘Economies of Destruction’ in 2020. David Fontijn was working on a book offering a new perspective on the Bronze Age when he passed away in 2023.