Oppidum Stradonice, Josef Ladislav Píč, and Joseph Déchelette

The discovery of a Celtic oppidum near Stradonice in Central Bohemia attracted the attention of the Czech archaeologist J. L. Píč at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and then of the French oppidum researcher J. Déchelette, who translated Píč’s book on Stradonice into French. The controversy about the dating of the site was significant for further research, in which Píč tried to interpret Stradonice as the seat of the Germanic ruler Marobuduus from around the turn of the eras, while Déchelette, supported by archaeological finds, correctly identified Stradonice as a Celtic oppidum that had disappeared before the end of the 1st century BC. The article proves that both of these interpretations did not originate only then, but had a deeper tradition in Czech archaeology.