The first time they dug up the Glauberg, things didn’t go so well. The presence of ancient ruins on this plateau outside Frankfurt had long been known but it wasn’t until 1933 that a systematic excavation was ordered by a Nazi government keen to uncover the lost glories of the Germanic peoples. Unfortunately, a bombing raid in the last days of the war destroyed not just all the finds, but also all the associated documentation, leaving us none the wiser as to what was uncovered.
In the 1980s archaeologists returned and soon found a rich history of human habitation dating back to the fifth millennium BC. By the ninth century BC, the first fortifications had been erected; grave goods from the Celtic era – including golden torcs, jewellery festooned with coral from the Mediterranean and amber from the Baltics, and elaborately decorated bronze jugs – suggest that the settlement had become powerful.
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