Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (2.1972/1975)

THE EARLIEST PLOUGHSHARES
IN CENTRAL EUROPE
Ax
Ivan Balassa

Central Europe does not belong to those for-
tunate territories where the use of the plough
may be followed back to the II. millennium
B.C. with the aid of complete finds of ploughs
or parts of ploughs, or through ancient repre-
sentations of tillage. Recent research has be-
come more precise as the age of wooden re-
mains of ploughs may be dated more exactly
through the radio-carbon method (Bentzien
1968, 50-55; Lerche 1968, 58-60; Leegdsmand
1968, 61), and this and other methods have
also been used to date cave painting, for exam-
ple in Scandinavia and Italy. Research in Cen-
tral Europe, however, is restricted to finds of
iron parts which do not reach back further
than the middle of the first millennium B.C.
To what extent iron ploughshares can be
used to draw conclusions on the form of the
plough and the manner of ploughing is another
question. Opinions differ in regard to this. One
opinion is completely negative, stating that no
conclusions can be drawn from iron shares
regarding the size and the construction of the
plough, nor on its method of use and the level
of cultivation (Bratanic 1960, 10. note). Other
opinions postulate the closest connection be-
tween the ploughshare and the plough (Curwen
1927), and some even try to reconstruct the
manner of ploughing with the help of the share
(Payne 1948, 89-91). Recently fairly exact
conclusions have been drawn regarding the
plough and its contemporary use from the
shape of the iron share, the traces of wear on
it, and last but not least, by making experi-

ments (Dovzenok 1952, 118; Sach 1961, 104;
Kudlacek 1957). For this reason greater atten-
tion must be paid to archaeological finds of
ploughshares than has been done hitherto.
In the following the author wishes to draw
attention to three types of ploughshares which
may be attributed to the late Hallstatt period,
or the La Tene period, whose development may
be attributed in greater or lesser degree to the
Celts.1 It is possible to distinguish three ob-
viously different types of ploughshares.
1. Shafted Ploughshares
The long shaft ends in a relatively short plough-
ing blade. Its fastening is oblique, sometimes
passing through the plough-beam and resting
below on the plough-head.
A typical specimen was found in Budapest
close to the Roman Town, Aquincum. It was
excavated by navvies and therefore cannot be
located exactly. As to its age, it is at least
Roman, but might be connected with an earlier
period of the Iron Age, as find spots of this
period also occur in this district. The Aquin-
cum-share (fig. le) is now in the Historical Mu-
seum of Budapest, Department of Prehistory,
and has the inventory number: 51.334. Its
length: 67.1 cm, of which the length of the
ploughing blade is 12.5 cm. The shaft is square
in cross-section, 2.4 X 2.4 cm (Balassa 1973 fig.
19e).
A ploughshare of similar shape is known
from Pferov in Czechoslovakia, the age of
which, however, has not yet been exactly de-