Archaeologists find 1,800-year-old belt buckle in Ukrainian forest

Local residents in the Tsetsyn Forest of southeastern Ukraine discovered a colorful metal belt buckle and gave it to Antonii Moisei, a professor at Bukovinian State Medical University.

The artifact features teal, blue, and yellow enamel decorations on a square piece of metal measuring about 0.8 inches on each side. Moisei identified the construction and decoration style as dating back to the second to third centuries A.D.

During this period, the region was part of Roman Dacia, a province established after the Roman Empire defeated the Dacian kingdom under the leadership of Decebalus. Moisei also recovered a decorative belt fitting and three small metal objects that likely belonged to the same set. He created a reconstruction to show how the belt appeared before it was lost in the forest nearly two millennia ago.

The professor suggests the belt may have belonged to a Sarmatian warrior, a nomadic group of horse riders from the Black Sea region who lived outside the Roman Empire. While some Sarmatians fought against Rome, others served as mercenaries for the empire. The buckle reflects a Roman provincial craft tradition, which the owner might have acquired through trade or as a war trophy.

Moisei continues to study the fragments to determine if they were indeed Sarmatian or belonged to a local Dacian.