The ‘Celts Beneath the Pálava Hills’ exhibition was installed at the end of the summer of 2020 at the Regional Museum in Mikulov. The museum prepared the exhibition in cooperation with the Moravian Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno. Along with other unique exhibits, an assemblage of 70 metal artefacts stored in Dolní Dunajovice in the study collection of the Research Centre for the Roman and Great Migration periods of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, was chosen to be displayed for this event. The article presents 47 small artefacts made of copper alloys, 18 coins and five glass artefacts from 17 cadastral units, which enriched the exhibition with a variety of characteristic LT C and D1 finds. They do not form a complete collection, as their common denominator is that they were found in 2011–2017 solely by metal detectorists working together with the archaeologists from the workplace where the finds are stored. These never-before-published artefacts and the qualities of each deserve to be presented both to the public and the professional community. These artefacts include finds which, in the context of the Late Iron Age of south Moravia, are unique objects (including two bronze figurines) that are significant contributions to the clarification and differentiation of the topography of the La Tene settlement structure in the studied region.

The collections of Buchlov State Castle include, among other things, a richly decorated late medieval long-sword that can be, based on its overall character, including maker’s marks on its blade, reliably interpreted as a so-called magistrate’s sword made around the turn of the 16th century in Passau, Bavaria. This article discusses the nature of its decoration in comparison with other similar preserved Central European magistrates’ swords of Passau provenance, as well as both the practical and symbolic function of these weapons.

Švédův Stůl Cave in the Moravian Karst has been excavated several times since Martin Kříž started the first excavation in 1886. Two parts of the site were re-excavated in 2019. The primary aim was to conduct classical as well as innovative and experimental sedimentological and geoarchaeological investigations of sediments from the discarded spoil heap outside the cave entrance (trench C–D). Intact sediments with a small number of lithic artefacts and a large number of animal bones were also excavated during the 2019 excavation (trench A–B) located under the trench excavated by Bohuslav Klíma’s team in the 1950s. An attempt is being made using pXRF, benchtop ED-XRF and ITRAX techniques to link some of the sedimentary material in the spoil heap (C–D) with the stratified sediments in trench A–B. Animal bones and lithic artefacts were found in both trenches. Numerous samples were collected for geoarchaeological, palaeoenvironmental and dating analyses and the results will be published in upcoming publications.

A fragment of a bronze figurine discovered recently at the Staré Hradisko oppidum, which represents a female with her arms on the hips, stands out from similar artefacts from a stylistic and technological point of view. The present paper analyses the artefact from the stylistic point of view by setting it into the context of other anthropomorphic statuettes from the Middle Danube area and the technological standpoint utilising microscopy and elemental composition analysis of the alloy. The artefact contributes in an original way to the discussion on the nature of La Tène art in the Recent and Late La Tène period.

The study attempts to show the potential of iron slags to answer questions about the organization of iron production in 9th-century Moravia. As a case study, it evaluates a small archaeological assemblage from the contemporary rural settlement of Bořitov, where basic contextual and macroscopic evaluation in combination with various archaeometric analyses (pXRF, ED-XRF, XRD, SEM/EDS) of iron slags made it possible to recognize the smelting of iron ore, as well as its further processing in a reheating hearth and smithy. Taking into account some other finds connected with iron production as well as the specific geographic position of Bořitov, these results also indicate that the community in Bořitov could have been beyond the reach of regional elites and might thus have acted as independent producers with the main purpose to saturate their own demand and/or exchange the surplus.