About 600 years ago, a nobleman visiting a medieval castle lost his gorgeous gem. However, archaeologists have recently ed a unique amethyst set in silver that has been extinguished from the muddy old moat.
“I think this item is originally part of a brooch or unlikely to be a coronet or a crown,” he told Live Science in an email that it “makes it very unique in the context of medieval reconciliation.”
Medieval jewelry is often found in storage and graves. Other archaeologists at Wroc University, Marek and Vida Miazga, wrote in a study published online on July 11th in Journal Antiquity. However, this was discovered in more “normal” situations, they wrote, perhaps lost by those traveling to Castle Corno.
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Castle Corno was established in the early 13th century as a fortress and a palace for dukes, and also served as a customs office that governs the transport of wood. The original owner, Brzeg’s Duke Bolesław IIIIII, eventually sold his property to the wealthy Order. In 1443, Castle Corno was burned down and destroyed during a civil war in Silesia. And in 2010, Marek and his team began archaeological excavations at the destroyed castle, discovering the typical military crafts, cavalry, ceramic items and ceramics of the 14th and 15th centuries.
Using Raman spectroscopy, which measures the light emitted from lasers that fire material to determine molecular composition, the gem was identified as amethyst, and X-ray fluorescence analysis revealed that the metal parts were coated with silver and fire.
“Because of their symbolic meaning, availability and aesthetic nature, amethysts were popular during the Middle Ages,” Marek said.
Related: Medieval crowns of Eastern European royalty hidden in cathedral walls since World War II finally recovered
Medieval folklore suggests that amethysts can protect dressers from addiction, poison, gout, bad dreams, treason, deceit, captivity, blindness, magic and strangulation, researchers wrote.
“In the refined medieval play of symbols, there was always a deeper reason for the choice of gems for gems,” Marek said, “If gems were believed to be prosecuted with supernatural forces, their value increased rapidly.”
It is unclear who lost this semi-compassionate gem and how they lost it, but it is undoubtedly that the researchers definitely lived in the noble lifestyle. Similar gems in similar settings have been found in high-end jewelry at the time, Marek said. However, castle corno amethyst is rare as it is a high status gem worthy of Dukes, which is likely to have been lost in very common activities several centuries ago.
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