Archaeologists believe they have found a treasure trove full of valuable ancient coins – not coins, but in the form of… thousands of identical ribs, ax blades, bracelets.
According to Acient Origins, research led by Leiden University (Netherlands) gathered more than 5,000 strange objects they found at more than 100 locations scattered across Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. They are bronze crafted into 3 shapes: ax blades, ribs or bracelets. The scary thing is that these ancient items are identical even though they were dug up in many different locations.
Bronze ribs – Photo: PLOS ONE
According to Dr. Malkel HC Kuijpers from Leiden University, one of the main authors of the study, what they found could be the 100 treasures buried by those who occupied Central Europe in 2,000 BC, and is valuable evidence for an early monetary economy.
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The ax blade and copper bracelet are also identical – Photo: PLOS ONE
The article published on PLOS One explains that these could be vaults that the owner buried at the bottom of the river or in the forest, for some mysterious reason but never dug up. The near-absolute similarity between the ribs, axes and rings as well as their…uselessness suggests they were deliberately produced for interchange purposes.
However, there is another theory, which is that the items could have been used as medals in ancient sports games.
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