Iron lady;The Princess from the Kapiteljska njiva

The archaeological exhibition Iron Lady presents a remarkable Early Iron Age grave – Grave 34 from Tumulus XVI – investigated in 2004. It contained extremely rich and numerous grave goods, which define it as a princely grave. The grave has been dated to the second half of the seventh century BC and includes “inherited” artefacts from the late eighth century BC. Grave inventories with grave goods from two different periods, allow us to identify continuity in the community.
The exhibition items were in restoration  and conservation in Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz (Germany).
The central position of the grave within the distribution of graves in the tumulus also indicates the special status of the deceased, a factor which confirms our assumption about the social structure of this Early Iron Age society, in which the deceased, with grave goods of such richness, is the first member and initiator of a family that then continued to bury its dead in the mound for the next 300 years.
The analysis showed that there are a total of 30 teeth, of a person who died at the age of between 20 and 30. On the basis of the position of the grave goods, we conclude that the deceased was between 160 and 165 cm tall.