PHOTOS: Rare military armour in great condition unearthed in Hungarian town

The archaeologists of the Déri Museum in Debrecen have found the tomb of a fully armed Pannonian Avar warrior on the outskirts of Ebes.

The armour, found in November 2023, is now being dismantled in a workshop. The solitary Pannonian Avar tomb yielded full plate armour, and a horse was buried above the warrior who was resting in a relatively shallow grave. The armour was found under the horse, spread out over the deceased, on top of which the warrior’s open-headed wooden weapon with arrows was placed, as well as his bow and sword.

The most important discovery of the tomb is the armour it contains. It is only the second lamellar shell to be excavated that can probably be described as complete, and it is largely intact. The lamellar armour was an important part of the equipment of the cavalry. Until now, only a few fragments have been recovered from graves, or, when complete armour was found, it was not intact.

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“Except for the horse bones, the entire artefact assemblage was excavated in one block by the experts, and is being dismantled and documented in a restoration workshop. The archaeologists, as the find was discovered in November, on the day of Rufus, gave this name to the warrior who lived in the early Avar era, probably in the first half of the 7th century,” the Déri Museum writes on its Facebook page.

The importance of the Derecske artefact is shown by the fact that the museum’s treasures have been on display in Austria (Schallaburg) and Germany (Halle) in recent years at exhibitions of equestrian nomads.

These armours are not uniform, so they were custom-made. Thus, they may have been made of different sizes, shapes and numbers of plates, with different lacing methods. They may have consisted of different numbers of rows, so the more complete or nearly complete armour pieces that are found are intact, the more complete the picture we can get not only of the armour, but also of the Pannonian Avar heavy cavalry.

The museum notes that the armour and weapons are currently visible on the body, but that further valuable artefacts may be found as the restoration progresses.

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