Late Roman officer found, chained to a plough

[Viggen]

...to prevent him from coming back they tied his hands and put a plough on his chest so he cannot come back to haunt the living. The so called "Wiedergänger" were well documented in Italy but this is the first find in Austria. The roman officer could be dated to late 5th century and the place they found him was in the east of austria back then part of the noricum/pannonia border region.

 

http://burgenland.orf.at/news/stories/2663064/

in German but some nice pictures

[sonic]

There are a couple of problems here.

 

One is that the find is dated to the 'end of the fifth century'.  The area of Noricum/Pannonia was probably 'ruled' by Odovacer at this time, so it will be interesting to see what specific finds indicate a 'Roman' officer, rather than either a mercenary or someone equipped with looted gear.

 

Second, if the grave goods include material with a 'Byzantine feel', does this mean that the man was a 'Byzantine' officer?

 

So many questions and so long to wait for the publication of the findings.

[Viggen]

There are a couple of problems here.

 

One is that the find is dated to the 'end of the fifth century'.  The area of Noricum/Pannonia was probably 'ruled' by Odovacer at this time, so it will be interesting to see what specific finds indicate a 'Roman' officer, rather than either a mercenary or someone equipped with looted gear.

 

Second, if the grave goods include material with a 'Byzantine feel', does this mean that the man was a 'Byzantine' officer?

 

So many questions and so long to wait for the publication of the findings.

 

...when i spoke a couple of years ago with Prof. Glaser who was excavating Gothic graves in Globasnitz (southern Austria) he told me that in his opinion the bureaucracy and army was pretty much in very similar shape than before the Goths took over (we talk about end of 5th century) and only the ruling class was replaced by goths. So that would make a lot of sense to me to have what appears to be a late roman empire looking soldier" and end of the 5th century can be anything (in my opinion from 450 to 499). In any case there are obvious very interesting questions, and i promise to keep you up to date. I have lots of faith in Austrian archaeologists, they do this for over hundred years

[sonic]

I hope you're right.  One of the greatest -perceived - failings of archaeology is the slow turnout of written reports. But maybe that's just the bias I remember from my time in a University History department.