Section of fortifications, Nitriansky Hradok. Otomani mountain settlements, like Spissky-Stvrtok, were usually fortified by powerful drystone walls, W. 6-7.5 m with inner and outer faces of roughly cut blocks. Where stone was scarcer, as at Barca and Nitriansky Hradok, palisades replaced stone faces, linked by horizontal beams passing through the earth fill. Another palisade usually surmounted the wall, which was encircled by a formidable ditch.

Otomani III channelled clay cup from Dersida.

Otomani III high-necked clay jar from Barca. Ht 28 cm. Conical bosses, whether on shallow bowls or on the bodies of high-necked pots, were characteristic decorative motifs, reviving a local Chalcolithic tradition.

Urn from Deva, with characteristic Wietenberg III running spiral decoration.

Clay ritual hearth found in a Wietenberg III settlement layer at Sighisoara (previously Wietenberg). Diam. approx. 1.5 m.

Left: Bronze axehead and detail of head with incised flame motifs, from Paulis. Centre: Bronze spearhead with incised running flame motif, from an unknown Hungarian findspot. Right: Bronze axehead with a flame motif in horns symbol form, from Szirmabesenyo.

Bronze sword from the Apa hoard. L. 62 cm. Hoards of the Hajdusamson-Apa and Koszider horizons, probably dating to around the second quarter of the second millennium, contain many of the most magnificent Otomani-Wietenberg weapons.

Otomani III horns symbol pendants. Left: Barca, bronze. Max. W.1.32 cm. Centre: Spissky Stvrtok, gold. Max. W. 6 cm. Right: Plain bronze pendants, Max. W. usually between 1.5 cm and 12.5 cm, found in large numbers in some Otomani graves and hoards. The in-curving ends of the first and second may indicate a tendency by some groups to adopt rams' rather than bulls' horns to symbolize strength and apotropaic power, inter alia accounting for the use of rams' heads on Late Bronze and Early Iron Age firedogs.

In shape and decoration this massive gold bracelet from Bilje, near Osijek in northern Yugoslavia, syncretizes the horns symbol with that of the fiery sun. L. 11.8 cm.

The syncretism is further reflected in fragments of a clay model wagon from Lechinta de Mures, one of several found in Transylvania as well as clay model wheels.

Left: Horn bridle cheekpiece from Sarata-Monteoru. Centre: Horn bridle cheekpiece from Male Kosihy. Right: Bronze pinhead from the Borodino hoard. While wagons were probably ox-drawn, horn cheekpieces are probable evidence of riding horses. The incised undulating band decoration, especially common on horn objects but related to that on the Borodino bronze pinhead, is often ascribed to Mycenaean influence. The pin more likely represents the native horns symbol, from which the undulating band on circular artefacts may derive to produce a continuous effect.

Fragment of ceremonial gold sword from Persinari. L. 29 cm.

Gold phalerae and buttons, from Ostrovul Mare. Diams 6.8 and 3.5 cm.

Bronze bucket from Brincovenesti. Ht approx. 45 cm. Introduction of forging about the 13th century enabled the North Thracians to use sheet bronze for buckets; although wood or antlers, it seems, remained in use for plough coulters.

Evidence of the extension of Koszider horizon Otomani-Wietenberg influence north and east of the Carpathians.
* bronze hoards of Koszider type
• chance Koszider-type finds
+ bronze objects connected with the Tshinetsky culture
^ Komarow cemetery

Caucasian finds with characteristic North Thracian decoration. Fragments of gold plaques from the Kelermes tumulus...

...and a Middle Bronze Age painted pot bearing Carpatho-Balkan flame symbols, from Tumulus XVII, Trialeti. Ht 72 cm.

'Villlanovan-type' urn from the Girla Mare cemetery at Balta Verde. Ht 32.6 cm.

Pottery from Lapus. Single-handled clay bowl. Ht 23 cm. Two-handled clay bowl. Ht 16 cm.

A development of the Otomani high-necked urn with painted decoration and four bosses terminating in horned animal heads, the horns now mostly broken. Ht 46 cm.

Clay offering-vessel from Sarata-Monteoru.

Cherven, south of Rousse, where later ruins overlie Thracian remains, is a typical promontory site, with steep sides dropping to the almost encircling river offering both natural protection and access to water supplies. Only a narrow neck of land needed ramparts and ditches.

Postholes outline a two-roomed apsidal-ended dwelling in level VI at Nova Zagora, whose max. L. is 12.7 m and W. 5-15 m

Clay dipper from Ezero. Ht 9.5 cm. These small slant-mouth cups with high knobbed handles found in Ezero's final levels, Nova Zagora levels VI and V, Karanovo VII and other north Thracian Plain sites, as well as in the Devetaki and Magoura caves, were probably scoops and measures for grain or liquids.

Clay dipper from Yunatsite. Ht 13 cm. At Razkopanitsa and Yunatsite, but also at Devetaki, dippers often had pointed bases, sometimes two handles and incised decoration.

Indications of Otomani-Wietenberg contact with South Thrace. Two schematic horn figurines from Ezero. Hts 9 and 6.9 cm.

A sherd from Pokrovnik. Two horn figurines, one definitely and the other questionably anthropomorphic, in level II of the north-east sounding at Ezero, immediately above the level containing the Thermi-type lidded vessel, form a link with Otomani I and II. Close analogies appear in early Otomani levels at Barca. Others occur at Ganovce and Mad'arovce, at the Ljubljana marshes site and at several in Hungary, also at Brasov in Romania.

Decoration on the Pokrovnik sherd, as on the Tsepina jug suggests a strengthening of Otomani-Wietenberg links with South Thrace towards the end of the Bronze Age.

Clay jug from the Tsepina fortress in the west Rhodopes. Ht 8 cm.

A massive seven-angled drystone wall, L. 262 rn and W. 2.20 m, using roughly cut but carefully laid blocks sometimes more than 1 m long protects the accessible sides of the Late Bronze Age Ostur Kamuk fortress, near Kurdjali, and distinguishes it from Iron Age neighbours, roughly built of smaller stones. Like Tsepina, it was sited to defend the Thracian Plain from the south, perhaps a precaution against Mycenaean expansion.