Danube gravel hid at least 500 La Tène iron bars near Deinham
Live Science said Peter Trebsche and Marion Berranger identified at least 500 La Tène iron bars, about 1 metric ton, from a 2019 Deinham gravel find. Tiroler Tageszeitung quoted Trebsche telling APA the previous largest comparable haul was about 300 kg in the Rhineland. Both pages treat a lost Danube shipment as likelier than ritual deposit.
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Five hundred bars from gravel
Live Science, in a 20 September report by Kristina Killgrove, said Peter Trebsche of the University of Innsbruck and Marion Berranger of the University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard analysed iron recovered in 2019 during gravel extraction near Deinham, Austria. From hundreds of fragments they identified 193 complete bars and 307 partial bars, at least 500 in all, together about 1 metric ton. Complete bars averaged 28.5 centimetres and about 2 kilograms. The bars are La Tène semi-finished double-pointed stock from the third to second centuries BCE.[1]
What Trebsche told APA
Tiroler Tageszeitung, on 20 September, quoted Trebsche speaking to APA. The 2019 gravel-pit find was reported to the BDA. Radiocarbon dating, newly usable on iron, places it in the La Tène period. The previous largest comparable haul was about 300 kg in the Rhineland. Divers found no boat remains. The bars were donated to the Landesmuseum Oberösterreich. Trebsche said shipments of this scale must have been repeated.[2]
A lost cargo, two distances
Live Science said the authors treat a Danube shipwreck loss as likelier than ritual deposition and note possible production toward Manching, about 200 kilometres away; elemental origin work is still running. Tiroler Tageszeitung put the same working hypothesis near oppida such as Manching, about 250 km upstream. The two distances are not merged here. Enough complete bars, Trebsche said on the Live Science account, for about 500 swords or up to 8,000 nails.[1], [2]
