Tolmin

On the meteoritical gold from Kobilnik near Tolmin

Kobilnik is a 688 m high hill situated above the confluence of the Tolminka and Zadlaščica Rivers near Tolmin in the Soča region. In a paper on meteorite falls in the territory of Slovenia, written by geologists M. Jeršek and U. Herlec and published in the book Mineralna bogastva Slovenije (Mineral riches of Slovenia, 2006), is the narrative by M. Šorli about a meteorite falling on this hill around 1885 (http://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Scopolia_Suppl_3_0480-0485.pdf). After World War II a piece of metal was found here by a metal detector, and was immediately declared as a meteorite. The geologists saw a slice of this piece, kept by the son of the finder Ciril Cuder – Tiljo. Since it consists mostly of copper, it is clear that this piece of metal did not fall from the sky.
Jeršek and Herlec were unaware of a short report on the discovery of the piece of metal on the Kobilnik hill that was published in the journal Delo in 1964. The journalist Just Perat reports that the searchers (Cuder and Nuk), originally looking for iron remains from World War I, were surprised by the discovery of an unusually formed piece of copper. They thought that it might represent a meteorite because they knew the legend about the apparitions of Virgin Mary on Kobilnik at the end of the 19th century. One small part of the copper find was sent to Ljubljana for analysis, one slice was kept by Cuder, and the biggest part, as large as a big male fist, was donated to the Tolminski muzej.
At the beginning of November 2016 I came to the conclusion that the supposed fall of a meteorite on Kobilnik around 1885 is an invention of Šorli because it is not documented at all in the newspapers of that time or in later publications. Written reports on the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1890, the first of which was published in 1937, also do not mention any meteorites falling on the same hill five years earlier. After the apparitions a big cross of cast iron was erected on Kobilnik, which still stands there. I have written a text with the title Kobilnik nad Zadlazom / Kobilnik above Zadlaz and uploaded it on the Academia.edu portal on November 7, 2016: https://www.academia.edu/29718206. This stimulated Miha Mlinar, curator of Tolminski muzej, to search in the notebooks of Marija Rutar, museum’s director, from 1964. He was lucky and found three mentions of the copper piece from Kobilnik above Zadlaz, among them even a notice telling that it was detected only 5 m from the iron cross.
The staff of the Tolmin museum also succeeded in finding the “lost” major portion of the copper object on November 9, 2016. The piece is approximately one quarter of a large plano-convex ingot dating to the Ha B period. The chemical analysis performed in Ljubljana immediately after its rediscovery showed that it contained around 75 % copper, but also more than 20 % lead. Such a composition differs from those of other plano-convex ingots from the Late Bronze Age in Slovenia, which are made of copper, and corresponds to those of the cast ingots from the Ha B period. Around 80 % of these ingots contain more than 10 % lead, and some of them even more than 50 % lead (Trampuž Orel 1996, 196, Tab. 12 on p. 190).
Exactly one month after its rediscovery in the museum collections, the plano-convex ingot from Kobilnik was included in the exhibition Prapoti skozi praproti (Ancient trails through the ferns) that opened on December 9, 2016, at the Tolminski Muzej. The piece is described and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue (Mlinar, Turk 2016, 24, Kobilnik, 54, Cat. No. 22, and 86–87).
Mlinar, Turk 2016
M. Mlinar, M. Turk, Prapoti skozi praproti. Arheološka topografija dolin Tolminke in Zadlaščice, Tolmin 2016.
Trampuž Orel 1996
N. Trampuž Orel, Spectrometric Research of the Late Bronze Age Hoard Finds, in: B. Teržan (ed.), Hoards and Individual Metal Finds from the Eneolithic and Bronze Ages in Slovenia 2, Katalogi in monografije 30, Ljubljana 1996, 165–242.

The abstract was proof read by Emily Zavodny from Penn State University (USA).

The Slovenian abstract is followed by an English one.
(Izvleček) V letu 2017 bo veliko dela z urejanjem zbornika mednarodnega znanstvenega sestanka o latenizaciji na območju med jugovzhodnimi Alpami in hrvaško-srbskim Podonavjem, ki sva ga s prof. Karlom Stroblom iz Celovca priredila novembra 2012 v Kobaridu. Serena Vitri iz Trsta je zanj napisala članek o najmlajših grobovih grobišča Misincinis v Paularu, ki so zelo revni in večinoma vsebujejo najmlajše certoške fibule.
Moj članek o grobovih certoške stopnje v gomili 48 iz Stične je bil objavljen v reviji Prilozi Instituta za arheologiju u Zagrebu 33 za leto 2016. V njem je seznam ženskih in moških grobov te stopnje, na štirih tablah pa so predstavljene značilne najdbe (fibule, orožje, deli pasu, konjska oprema, obročast nakit, steklene in jantarne jagode, keramične in bronaste posode).
Za objavo v zborniku znanstvenega sestanka o Segestiki/Sisciji, ki je potekal septembra 2015 v Zagrebu, sem oddal članek o dačanskih brzdah iz pozne latenske in zgodnje cesarske dobe, ki so bile najdene v Kolpi v Sisku in v grobu konja, ki ga je pred letom 1904 pri Orešcu v dolini Drave izkopal župnik Stjepan Tompak.
Na mednarodnih sestankih sem imel tri predstavitve: aprila 2016 v Sarajevu o relativni kronologiji dolenjske halštatske skupine, maja 2016 v Trenčianskih Teplicah na Slovaškem o kovinskih najdbah iz naselja stopnje LT D1 pri Trenčianskih Bohuslavicah in oktobra 2016 v Forliju o grobnici etruščanskega princa in italski brzdi iz Stične ter o etruščanski bronasti skodeli iz Ljubljane.
Grob z negovsko čelado, ki je bil lani izkopan blizu Hrastnika, je vseboval tudi bogato okrašeno pasno spono z rebrom in dolgim kavljem, ki ima dve okrašeni primerjavi v Sloveniji (v Brezjah pri Trebelnem in v Ljubljanici) in tri neokrašene z najdišč v bližini Gardskega jezera v severni Italiji.
Na občasni razstavi Tolminskega muzeja Prapoti skozi praproti, ki je bila odprta 9. decembra 2016 (avtor Miha Mlinar), je predstavljen pomemben surovec iz žarnogrobiščne dobe. Leta 1964 sta ga na Kobilniku blizu Tolmina našla dva iskalca z detektorjem. Poklonjen je bil muzeju in inventariziran, potem pa dolgo let založen, dokler ni bil novembra 2016 ponovno odkrit.
Borut Bezjak s Trat blizu Šentilja je v začetku januarja letos na bregu Mure našel dva kosa železa. Ko sem 13. februarja s posredovanjem Saše Djure Jelenko iz Slovenj Gradca dobil 13 fotografij obeh kosov, se mi je posvetilo, da gre za dela izjemne poznolatenske brzde s podbradnico italskega izvora.
(Abstract)
Event: Research programme day at the Institute of Archaeology.
Presentation title: Early and Late Iron Age.
A lot of work will be devoted this year to the editing of the Acts of the International Scientific Conference on Latenization in the territory from the south-eastern Alps to the Croatian-Serbian Danube region, organized in November 2012 by Professor Karl Strobel in Klagenfurt and myself. Serena Vitri from Trieste has written a paper on the latest graves in the Hallstatt cemetery of Misincinis at Paularo in Carnia, which are quite modestly furnished and mostly contain the latest Certosa fibulae.
My paper on the graves of the Certosa phase in Early Iron Age barrow 48 from Stična was published in the journal Prilozi Instituta za arheologiju u Zagrebu 33 for 2016. The paper contains a list of the female and male graves of this phase and presents the typical finds on four plates (fibulae, weapons, belt parts, horse gear, annular jewellery, glass and amber beads, ceramic and bronze vessels).
For the Acts of the Conference on Segestica/Siscia, organized in September 2015 in Zagreb, I submitted a paper on Late La Tène and Early Imperial Dacian horse bits from the river Kupa in Sisak and from a horse grave excavated by parish priest Stjepan Tompak before 1904 near Orešac in the Drava Valley.
I gave three presentations at international conferences: in April 2016 in Sarajevo on the relative chronology of the Dolenjska Hallstatt group; in May 2016 in Trenčianske Teplice in Slovakia on some metal finds from the LT D1 settlement at Trenčianske Bohuslavice; and in October 2016 in Forli on the Etruscan princely grave and Italic horse bit from Stična, and also on an Etruscan bronze cup from Ljubljana.
The recently excavated grave with a Negova type helmet from the vicinity of Hrastnik in the Sava Valley also contained a richly decorated bronze belt plate that has two decorated parallels in Slovenia and three undecorated parallels in the surroundings of the Garda Lake in Northern Italy.
In the temporary exhibition Ancient Trails through Ferns in Tolminski muzej an important fragment of a bronze plano-convex ingot is displayed. It was found in 1964 by two metal detectorists on the Kobilnik hill near Tolmin, donated to the museum, misplaced, and on my initiative rediscovered in November 2016. 
Two iron objects were found in January 2017 in the river Mura by Borut Bezjak from Trate near Šentilj close to the Slovenian-Austrian border. On February 13 I obtained several photographs of them and discovered that they belong to an outstanding Italic curb bit from the Late La Tène period. 
The abstract was proof read by Nina Crummy from Colchester (UK).

Dante è considerato il padre della letteratura italiana. In che modo hanno guardato a lui i friulani, così fieri della propria cultura e della propria lingua? Questo volume prova a rispondere alla domanda esaminando gli episodi più significativi della fortuna del poeta in Friuli a partire dall’Ottocento risorgimentale. Ne deriva un percorso ricco di stimoli, che spazia dalla leggenda del soggiorno di Dante in Friuli a un discorso che lo addita a modello di morale e di lingua per la gioventù, passando poi dalle celebrazioni del 1865 e del 1921 alle traduzioni in friulano della Commedia, per giungere sino alla fantasmagorica rivisitazione del poema ad opera del pittore Anzil, in dialogo con lo scrittore Carlo Sgorlon.

V zadnjih štirih stoletjih pred našim štetjem so se v Posočju spojile tri kulture: domača posoška kultura starejše železne dobe, ki jo najbolje poznamo na podlagi velikega grobišča in naselja na Mostu na Soči, italska kultura z Apeninskega polotoka in keltska iz srednje Evrope. Pestre najdbe iz tistega časa so odkrili zlasti na grobiščih, od katerih je najpomembnejše na Idriji pri Bači, in v svetiščih, na primer nad Kobaridom in na Šentviški planoti.
Izstopajo predmeti z venetskimi in italskimi napisi, srebrne pletene ovratnice, za Posočje značilne fibule z živalsko glavico, raznovrstne bronaste posode, konjska in konjeniška oprema in železno poljedelsko orodje (na primer kose, lemeži, črtala in koničaste kopače), najdeno v grobovih in zakladih.