Iron Age4th century BC · Łysa Góra, Bagienice, Mazovia, Poland
2,400-year-old Celtic helmet found crushed in a ritual pit in northeastern Poland
The bronze helmet and nearly 80 La Tène objects lead the team to think a group of Celts lived at the fortified settlement for about two generations.
In brief 3 key points
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- A crushed Celtic bronze helmet lay in an Iron Age ritual pit.
- It is the only such helmet known outside the Celtic world then.
- Celts may have lived there, but trade cannot be ruled out.
A crushed bronze helmet of a rare Celtic type has been found in a ritual pit at Łysa Góra in northeastern Poland. It dates to the 4th century BC, about 2,400 years ago. It is the only helmet of its kind known from outside the Celtic world in that century.
People broke the Berru-type helmet into pieces and threw it into a pit filled with charred remains. Four iron adzes and an iron scythe lay with it. Archaeologists from the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw and the University of Warsaw report the find in the journal Antiquity. The lead author is Bartłomiej Kaczyński of the museum.
“During the excavation, we uncovered an object made of bronze sheet metal, which we initially thought was a vessel. It was only when we exposed the tip that we realized we had found a helmet of a very rare type.”
Bartłomiej Kaczyński, archaeologist at the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw
A fortified dune in the marshes
Łysa Góra means "Bald Hill" in Polish. It is a glacial sand dune between the Orzyc River and one of its oxbow lakes, near Bagienice in northern Mazovia. Marshland surrounds it, which made it easy to defend.
Between the 6th and 4th centuries BC the dune was home to people of the West Balt Barrow Culture. These communities built fortified sites and lived partly from rivers and lakes. They buried their dead together in urns. In the Early Iron Age the region kept Late Bronze Age traditions and stayed culturally distinct from other Central European societies. The authors write that a settlement with many objects pointing to contacts with the south was therefore unexpected.
The site was identified in 1957 and dug on and off between 1971 and 1992. Few of those finds were ever published. "We did not know what to expect, as the site had a reputation for being severely disturbed," Kaczyński said. The museum and the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Archaeology resumed work in 2024.
The team found traces of timber-and-earth defences from around the middle of the first millennium BC. A line in the south had an embankment, a palisade and an outer ditch. Another, in the north, was built entirely of timber. It is not yet clear whether the two were in use at the same time.
The new excavations have produced nearly 350 metal objects, including ornaments, weapons and evidence of bronze-working. Bundles of broken bronze ornaments were probably waiting to be melted down. Amber beads and an unfinished amber ring point to the amber trade. The finds also include a bronze coin possibly of Seuthes III, a Thracian king.
A marshy zone below the dune held two ritual deposits. They contained bronze ring ornaments and earrings with glass beads. One also held a decorated bronze spiral armlet that had been repaired with rivets.
A warrior's helmet far from home
In the La Tène world, helmets like this one marked high status and membership of the warrior elite. La Tène is the archaeological name for Celtic culture of the later Iron Age. Such helmets are sometimes found in rich graves from Champagne in France to Dürrnberg in Austria. The Łysa Góra helmet closely matches finds from Dürrnberg.
The site has also yielded 31 mostly fragmentary Early La Tène brooches and ring ornaments. They date to around the mid-4th century BC. Nearly 80 La Tène objects have been found at the site so far. "Their diversity suggests that a group of Celts lived at the site for approximately two generations," Kaczyński said.
The authors think the helmet may be more than an exotic import. A warrior elite was probably a foreign idea to the local communities, which presumably had no chiefs. The team thinks the helmet may reflect the presence of people from the south, including members of their elite.
Trade from hand to hand cannot be ruled out. Small La Tène ornaments did reach distant parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The authors find this explanation less convincing, given the helmet's prestige and the lack of similar helmets outside the La Tène zone at the time.
The team suggests the Celts came for the amber trade. Łysa Góra lies near the amber-rich Kurpie region and routes leading north to the Sambian Peninsula. La Tène people may have helped set up or run this stretch of the "Amber Route" into Central Europe. The authors say this hypothesis still needs testing.
“Based on ancient written sources, we cannot rule out the possibility that enslaved people were traded there as well.”
Bartłomiej Kaczyński, archaeologist at the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw
In 2025 the team also found a trepanation tool, used to drill holes into the skull. Kaczyński said it suggests that "the group living at Łysa Góra included someone—possibly a druid—with medical knowledge."
Next, the team plans metallurgical studies, including lead isotope analyses, to trace the ore sources of the metal. They will compare the results with similar objects from Bohemia. Electrical resistivity and magnetic surveys should help clarify whether the two defensive lines were in use together.
Sources (2)
Peer-reviewed paperfrom State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw and University of Warsaw
- Rare Iron Age Celtic helmet discovered in northeastern Poland far from its homeland (Phys.org)
- >Łysa Góra in north-eastern Poland: a key Early Iron... (Antiquity)
Paper: Kaczyński, B., Maciałowicz, A., Borkowski, W. J., Sobczak, C. & Aniszewski, M. (2026). Łysa Góra in north-eastern Poland: a key Early Iron Age site on the 'Amber Route'. Antiquity. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2026.10436
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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