2,300-year-old iron find remains off limits to public

A 2,300-year-old hoard of iron bars weighing about one tonne remains inaccessible to the public, ORF reported. The find was discovered in 2019 in the municipality of Hartkirchen in the Eferding district and is now stored in Linz.

Workers at a gravel plant in Deinham, near Hartkirchen, still remember where the unusual objects appeared on an excavator bucket. Loader driver Fritz Mahringer said the shape and number of the pieces suggested that a ship had travelled along the Danube and sunk.

The Federal Monuments Authority was alerted, and the Iron Age find was recovered. It is now being kept in a temperature-controlled depot operated by Landeskultur GesmbH.

No exhibition is currently planned. The iron bars remain in storage while research continues.

The find consists of 500 bars, each weighing about two kilograms. Archaeologist Jutta Leskovar said such a large quantity of prehistoric iron was highly unusual and had no known equivalent elsewhere in Europe.

Researchers at the University of Innsbruck examined and measured each bar individually over several years. The discovery has offered a new perspective on iron production and trade 2,300 years ago.

Researchers believe the iron bars were probably intended for the Linz region. Leskovar said it was conceivable that the ship had been heading to Linz.

The find has also attracted international attention. Peter Trebsche of the University of Innsbruck said the research had been accepted for publication in the British specialist journal Antiquity, with researchers from France, Germany and Poland also expressing interest in reporting on it.