What is situla

The Vače situla is a bronze pail, 23.8 cm high, which was uncovered in an Iron Age burial mound at Vače in 1882 by a local inhabitant, and was later included in the collections of the National Museum of Slovenia in Ljubljana. Such pails were popular metal vessels in the early Iron Age, and were also excellent media for art and narrative. The Vače situla is particulary distinctive because of the decoration in three bands on its panels showing a prehistoric feast. The basic narrative is centralised on the upper bands. The first shows a festive procession of riders and chariots. The central band shows a sacrifice, a princely banquet, and war games with dumb-bells. Animals are featured on the third and lowest band. The scenes were hammered in shallow relief on the sheet metal of the situla in a repoussé technique. The situla was created in what is now Slovenia, in a workshop somewhere in Lower Carniola. It was made by a craftsman - storyteller in the 5th century BC, who was a master of the favoured manner of relief in bronze sheet metal, i.e. situla art, in the region between the Po and Danube rivers. The scenes on the situla from Vače include all the distinctive features of this artistic style, which places it among the masterpieces of European prehistory. The original is in the collections of the Archaeological Department of the National Museum of Slovenia. This replica has been reduced by a third, and is an authentic copy of the Vače situla.