An 1,800-year-old miniature bronze portrait of Alexander the Great has been discovered by metal detectorists on an island in Denmark.
Finn Ibsen and Lars Danielsen made the discovery while conducting survey work in an area west of Ringsted, a town on the Danish island of Zealand.
They then handed over the artifacts to Museum West Zealand, Danish news outlet TV2 East informed of.
According to a statement from Museum West Zealand, the bronze fitting – also known as a bracket – is made of bronze alloy, measures approximately 1 inch (2.7 cm) in diameter, and features an engraved image of a man with wavy hair. It is a crown made of bent ram’s horns.
Archaeologists immediately recognized the image as that of Alexander the Great, the famous founder of the ancient Macedonian monarchy, whose empire stretched from the Balkans to present-day Pakistan at the time of his death at the age of 32.
“This piece has characteristic attributes of Alexander the Great, such as his distinctive, wavy hair and ram horns,” said Freek Oldenberger, an archaeologist at Museum West Zeeland. biology,
“The image is almost identical to another Brackett portrait found years ago that includes a similarly stylized image.”
A different group of archaeologists in Jutland, Denmark, found the piece along with a metal bracket.
It was hidden among a cache of weapons, Oldenberger said, and was probably used “as an ornament worn on a silver shield – it was a way to show off.”
