Gold, silver and more than 1,000 fragments of gems dating back to 1,500BC were found
Find: A signet ring found inside the tomb
Archaeologists in southern Greece have found gold, silver and more than 1,000 fragments of jewels in a warrior’s tomb believed to date to 1,500BC.
The Greek Culture Ministry said: “It is the most impressive display of prehistoric funerary wealth in mainland Greece which has come to light in the past 65 years.”
Signet rings, a chain, gold and silver goblets and a sword were among the artefacts.
The discovery was made by American archaeologists working in the Pylos region in the southwest Peloponnese this summer.
The jewellery and weapons are thought to have been used to surround the shroud, placed in a wooden casket, of a warrior aged 30 to 35, likely a prominent figure of his time in the early Mycenaean period, the ministry said.
Relic: Archaeologists discovered ancient artefacts in warrior’s tomb
Precious: A golden chain found inside an ancient tomb
Unearthed: Jewellery and weapons were discovered
“The placement of so many jewels at a man’s grave also challenges the widely held conviction that jewels were mainly used in women’s burials,” the ministry quoted archaeologists Jack L Davis and Sharon R. Stocker, from the University of Cincinnati as saying.