Excavation results of relics at Luy Lau ancient citadel

Bronze drum mold pieces.

On October 7, 2024, the National Museum of History and the Bac Ninh Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism jointly conducted an excavation at the Luy Lau ancient citadel relic.

The archaeological team collected more than 2,300 pieces of bronze drum molds. Among them, there was a large outer mold of the drum face, with full decorative floral motifs from the center of the drum to the outer rim, along with molds at the drum’s body, body and feet, which added to the awareness and accurate recognition of the bronze drums cast at Luy Lau. Notably, after many years of excavating Luy Lau, this was the first time that a large number of relics and artifacts from the Tran dynasty were discovered, scattered in the upper soil layers of the citadel. This shows that during the Tran dynasty, the Luy Lau citadel area was used for quite a long time.

Based on the excavation results, experts confirmed that Luy Lau was a large metallurgical and bronze casting center that is very valuable in the study of the bronze drum casting process of the ancient Vietnamese and the strong vitality of Dong Son culture in the flow of national history. Therefore, it is very necessary to continue to research and excavate this workshop relic in Luy Lau ancient citadel, in order to comprehensively understand the activities related to metallurgy and bronze casting here.