Another find of a bread loaf idol from northern Lower Austria and the Lavatera thuringiaca L.

From October 2024 to March 2025, the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt am Main hosted a special exhibition showcasing nearly all the Early and Middle Bronze Age bread loaf idols, presented within their distribution and cultural context. Previous exhibitions on this topic have taken place in Cavriana in northern Italy in 2010 and in Manching in Upper Bavaria (Germany) in 2011. However, new bread loaf idols are continually being discovered, including those from private collections. One such example is a surface find from a settlement of the Věteřov culture at Niederfellabrunn in northern Lower Austria. This fragmentary idol, previously unpublished, was found in 1996. The article investigates whether the ‘radial’ impressions interrupting the lines on the artefact could be negatives of fruits of Lavatera thuringiaca L. (Garden tree- mallow) or other mallow plants (e.g. Malva sylvestris – wild mallow). We know of around 20 finds of bread loaf idols from eastern Austria alone, a figure which contrasts starkly with the limited finds from (southern) Moravia (only four). The article presents an analysis of ceramics and other finds from Niederfellabrunn, including a fragment of a decorated bowl and a jug fragment, supporting the dating of the site and a fragment of a bread loaf idol to the late Early Bronze Age.