“Unearthed: The Mysterious 3,500-Year-Old Bronze Hand That Could Rewrite Ancient Medical History!”
Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern/Philippe JonerThe one-pound bronze hand with gold foil.
“We had never seen anything like it,” said Andrea Schaer, head of the Ancient History and Roman Archeology Department at the Bern Archaeological Service of the 3,500-year-old hand. “We weren’t sure if it was authentic or not – or even what it was.”
“It may have been this man’s insignia,” Schaer continued, “and when he died it was buried with him.” She posited that the hand could have been a replacement for one he lost while alive, though the prosthetic appeared too delicate to have been for practical use.
Alternatively, the hand could have been on a statue, mounted on a stick like a scepter, or worn as a prosthetic as part of a ritual.
The find encouraged Schaer to lead a team back to the site of its burial for further artifacts. For seven weeks, the team excavated the area which was actually a badly-damaged grave, located on a plateau above Lake Biel near the tiny village of Prêles in Switzerland.
Here they found the bones of a middle-aged man, a long bronze pin, a bronze spiral likely intended to be a hair tie, and fragments of gold foil which matched those on the bronze hand. A broken finger of the bronze hand was also recovered in the grave which suggests that the hand was originally buried with the man.
The discovery is absolutely unique as metal objects in Bronze Age burials are rare. Further, gold is almost never found in Bronze Age burials in Switzerland. The find is believed to certainly be unique in Europe.
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