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Unikatowa zapinka emaliowana z Chlebczyna na południowym Podlasiu

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Andrzejowski J.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2017
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vol. LXVIII
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issue 68
275-280
EN
In 2017 the collections of the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw acquired a unique enamelled brooch found on the grounds of the village of Chlebczyn, Łosice County, in the valley of the Middle Bug, on the left, southern bank of that river2. The site of its discovery (Fig. 1) does not coincide with any of the archaeological sites recorded in that region3, thus, the brooch is either a genuine stray find, or it belongs to an as yet unidentified Roman Period cemetery or settlement. The brooch (Fig. 2) has a fan-shaped head with a raised compartment filled with white enamel, and a curved border with a row of punched dots and three round projections with a design of concentric circles; on the central projection there is a circular loop. The foot is trapeze-shaped, with a cell of red enamel, and three small round projections – two with cells of dark blue enamel, and one with residue of dark blue and green enamel (Fig. 3). The hinged fastening is incomplete. Length 43 mm, surviving height 9 mm, weight 6.39 g. Visible in the white enamel background are several, fairly regularly spaced round dimples with a distinct central cavity which originally held a small quantity of dark-coloured, presumably black enamel (Fig. 4). Similar inserts are a frequent form of decoration of plate brooches with a larger enamelled area, e.g., Roman sandal form brooches dated to the 2nd and 2nd/3rd centuries AD, where they imitate the nails studding the sole of the caligae5. At the same time, this form of decoration was used also in other types of enamelled brooches (Fig. 5). While the Roman provenance of the brooch find from Chlebczyn, and its general dating confined to the late 1st – late 2nd century are undeniable, its closer typological attribution is more problematic. The brooch belongs to a large – and quite varied – group of plate brooches with a single axis of symmetry8; many of these brooches have a small ring on the head. They are known mostly from the Rhine provinces and Gaul. So far, no good morphological analogy to our specimen has been identified among the numerous brooches of this group. According to Maxime Callewaert PhD7, the features of the brooch from Chlebczyn (projections decorated with enamel and the ocellated design, the cell filled with white enamel with small black dots of possibly black colour) establish the dating of this specimen as presumably, the second half of the 2nd century AD. The brooch is made of copper alloy containing 78.54% copper, 17.64% zinc and 2.34% lead, with a trace amount (0.39%) of tin4, thus, brass with a high content of zinc and lead content slightly higher than usual. Similar alloys were used widely in making small items, especially during the 1st century AD10. The dating proposed for the brooch does not permit a more conclusive culture attribution, but it does suggest that this specimen is more likely to belong to the Wielbark Culture rather than the Przeworsk Culture. In the immediate vicinity of Chlebczyn (Fig. 1) the only Wielbark Culture site is the cemetery at Sarnaki12 dated to phases B2/C1–C2; three settlements known from fieldwalking projects date to the Late Pre-Roman Period and the Roman Period (Chlebczyn I and II, Sarnaki XVI, Rozwadów II and XX)15, thus, most likely to belong to the Przeworsk Culture, while another one, located on the northern bank of the Bug, dates to the Late Roman Period (Wólka Nadbużna III)17, therefore should be attributed to the Wielbark Culture.
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Wschodnia strefa kultury przeworskiej – próba definicji

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Andrzejowski J.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2001
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vol. LIV
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issue 54
59-87
EN
The Przeworsk Culture existing for over 600 hundred years was, and actually still is recognised because of its chronological and territorial stability as an archaeological unit quite unique in Barbaricum. However, some peculiarities of the east-Przeworsk areas were noticed already although they hardly could have been analysed or even determined explicitly (T. Dąbrowska 1981a; 1981b; T. Dąbrowska, T. Liana 1986). Excavations on the Przeworsk Culture area east of the Vistula of the last 25 years have revealed a great number of well-dated sites, including several large cemeteries of some hundreds grave each (e.g. Niedanowo, Modła, Kołoząb, Kleszewo, Krupice, Kamieńczyk, Łajski, Nadkole, Oblin, Arbasy, Załubice). However, the most part of uncovered material still remains unpublished, or even not worked up. In the light of these surveys eastern Mazovia and Podlasie densely settled in the early Roman Period, particularly in the end of phase B1 and in phase B2 seems to be mostly interesting (Fig. 1). Although archaeological data from this territory corresponds in general with the standard of the Przeworsk Culture, it differs from the latter by some individual traits. However, the area cannot be recognised neither as an archaeological culture standing apart from the Przeworsk Culture nor even as a distinct local group of the latter. To define it I suggest the name the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture, attributing to this term both cultural and geographical meaning. Distinct features of the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture are expressed most of all in female costume, remarkably rich in comparison with western part of the culture. In phase B2 objects of copper alloy were preferred in this costume, while in western reaches of the Przeworsk Culture flourished manufacturing of iron ornaments based on local stylistic patterns. Distinction of the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture is exemplified by distribution of particular fibula types. For instance, in the east-Przeworsk zone there is a large number of eye brooches of Prussian series – over than 220 specimens have been recovered there so far (Fig. 2), of which cemeteries at Niedanowo, Modła, Kamieńczyk and Nadkole yielded even 30–40 specimens each. Number of distinct varieties of these brooches confirms their local manufacturing and stylistic evolution (Fig. 3). Eye fibulae dispersed all over much larger remaining territory of the Przeworsk Culture make no more than 30% of the number of brooches found east of the Vistula. Fibulae combining attributes of Almgren’s group IV and eastern series of group II make a local type distinctive for the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture (Fig. 5), where they were worn by adult women (J.Andrzejowski 1994a). Most of these brooches have the free end of the spring attached to the aperture on the head and formed into an ornamental knob. Such feature is also a common element of some early spring-cover fibulae of type Almgren 38-39 chiefly from the east-Przeworsk zone and the Wielbark Culture (Fig. 4). Bronze brooches derived from profiled trumpet--headed specimens (T. Dąbrowska 1995a), make another distinctive regional group. As a result of local evolution two variants arose: older one with still close affinities to the trumpet-headed fibulae, referred to as their type 5. (Fig. 6), and younger one with apparently simplified profile, referred to as their Mazovian variant (Fig. 7). In the western reaches of this zone some solid iron fibulae, being local varieties of Almgren’s group II and V. As a characteristic feature they have a spring hidden in a tubular encasement. However, the main area of their distribution locates west of the middle Vistula river (Fig. 8). Typical trait of the east-Przeworsk female costume is a large number of ornaments, mostly bracelets and long necklaces of diverse beads and pendants. Besides numerous melon-shaped beads of so-called Egyptian faience preserved in the cremation graves in relatively good condition very often are recovered beads of many-coloured glass usually, however, melted down or crushed. Probably the east-Przeworsk necklaces had been completed with some amber beads, which apparently gone during cremation. Interesting ornament feature so-called banded pendants made from a core (e.g. Cowrie shells, glass beads and balls, nuts, glass dices) winded with a narrow strap of bronze sheet. They were taken until now explicitly as result of the Wielbark Culture influences (T. Dąbrowska 1981a; 49; J. Andrzejowski 1992, 168f.). However, the earliest banded pendants from phase B1 came first of all from the Przeworsk Culture and the most part of their finds well-dated to the early Roman Period concentrate in the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture (Fig. 9). Apparently from this zone originates characteristic triangular pendants with a spring-like loop (Fig. 9) probably being a local, somewhat simplified variant of banded pendants. The Wielbark Culture or more broadly northern connections reveal large bipartite globular beads from bronze sheet decorated with engraved lines or embossed ornament (Fig. 10), like banded and triangular pendants. In the east-Przeworsk zone relatively common are also gold ball--shaped pendants and beads of silver filigree (Fig. 11). It is also Wielbark Culture where from wire S-clasps for fastening bead strings were borrowed (Fig. 12). The majority of them were produced locally from bronze, but also from silver and iron. Such iron S-clasps applied with junction loops (Fig. 12) were a local invention to secure a narrow thong used both in male and female dress (J. Andrzejowski 1997a, 110ff.). Ornament clearly differing female costume from the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture and its remaining territories are bracelets (J. Andrzejowski 1994b). Over a hundred of unprofiled bracelets found in the east-Przeworsk zone makes about 80% of all early Roman Period bracelets from the entire Przeworsk Culture (Fig. 13). Full adoption of bracelets in the standard female fashion in the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture is verified both by a diversity of bracelet types, besides unprofiled including also Pomeranian type of shield-headed bracelets, and a locally invented variant with profiled endings, so-called type Kamieńczyk (Fig. 13). Numerous bronze elements are also characteristic for the belts used in the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture, first of all strongly profiled belt-end fittings and belt links. Solid specimens mostly with reduced profile, dated chiefly to the phase B2 and known both in female and male belts predominate there (Fig. 16), unlike in the western reaches of Przeworsk Culture (cf. R. Madyda 1977, 380ff.). Very characteristic are also bronze belt links coming exclusively from the assemblages of phase B2 (Fig. 17). These elements are frequently combined to create a rich set of belt mountings dissimilar to one known from the western part of Przeworsk Culture (R. Madyda-Legutko 1984; M. Tempelmann-Mączyńska 1989, 65ff.). One may expect some northwestern affinities also in the case of uni- and bi-partite iron belt clasps from the Early Roman Period (R. Madyda-Legutko 1990). The weapons from the east-Przeworsk zone follow in general all types known from the entire Przeworsk Culture, nevertheless, some peculiarities are to be mentioned. In this zone lance points decorated with punched triangle motifs usually in so-called negative pattern seems to be relatively more frequent. This pattern amazingly resembles well-known pattern of the Early Roman Period pottery of the Wielbark Culture (Fig. 18), what was already noticed (P. Kaczanowski, J. Zaborowski 1988). It is also striking that most of the oldest Przeworsk lance points with silver inlay dated to phases B1/B2a came from its eastern zone (Fig. 20; cf. P. Kaczanowski 1988). The eastern areas of Przeworsk Culture produced also relatively many find of weapons made of bronze or with bronze elements. In this zone concentrate rare shield bosses type Jahn 7 with edges fitted in bronze and rivet-heads with bronze appliqué, quite common in the Elbian Culture and in western Scandinavia while almost missing in the western reaches of the Przeworsk Culture (T. Dąbrowska 1981a, 49; 1997, 91f.; J. Andrzejowski 1998a, 69; cf. N. Zieling 1989, 318ff., map 11). Single specimens with edges fitted in iron make a local Przeworsk Culture variety of such bosses (Fig. 19). Some features distinct for the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture are to be noticed in funeral pottery also. Among urns from phase B2 black smoothed or polished vases usually single- or three-handled seems to prevail. Ovoid or S-shaped coarse ware thick-walled urns with brownish body very common in the western part of the Przeworsk Culture are much less frequent in its eastern zone. Chronology of the large cemeteries confirms cultural meaning of this difference rather than chronological. A very typical for the eastern Przeworsk zone form of black ware urns is large, three-handled biconical vase with a triple-zone complex composition of designs consisting of three different motifs bounded by and interrupted by the handles (Fig. 21a, 22). Three handles are after all a pottery feature much more common in the territories east of the Vistula than in the remaining Przeworsk Culture area (T. Dąbrowska 1981a, 46). Another feature of the east-Przeworsk pottery is a rich ornamentation of the urns often in form of wide band of various motifs, what shows affinities to the Oksywie and early Wielbark Culture pottery (T. Dąbrowska 1995b; 1996). A variant of complex band ornamentation is the so-called narrative ornament consisting of an uninterrupted sequence of different motifs alternating in a fluid manner (Fig. 21b). Handles supported by a well-defined applied cordon sometimes forming a kind of profiled “tendrils” are also borrowed from the Wielbark Culture pottery (T. Dąbrowska 1981a, 46, fig. 2). Burial rituals of the east-Przeworsk zone follow cremation rite typical for the entire Przeworsk Culture. Lack of weapons in graves of Nidzica and Mława regions (J. Okulicz 1965; 1983; K. Godłowski 1985, 50f., 64ff.) may be connected with influences from Wielbark Culture. Very interesting although hard to explain are various stone settings known from northern and eastern Mazovian cemeteries, including quite elaborate assemblages in some way linked with burials (J. Okulicz 1970, s. 434ff.); however, most of them are yet not excavated. At the end of Przeworsk Culture in its eastern zone, i.e. in phase B2c–B2/C1a, share of poorly equipped pit burials grown up, what seems to be typical for the earliest Wielbark Culture graves in the area as well (T. Dąbrowska 1981a, 55; J. Andrzejowski 1989). Concluding we may ascertain that the Przeworsk Culture finds east of the Vistula, in Mazovia and Podlasie differ in the Early Roman Period from those of the remaining territory of this culture. The phenomenon appeared fully at the later phase B1 and increased in the phase B2. Finds from the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture testified then to strong affinity with the WielbarkCulture and northern areas of the Elbian Culture, some connections with the western Scandinavia are also noticed. Adoption of some strong foreign influences and combining them with typically Przeworsk Culture features grew up into a genuine east-Przeworsk style. Southern reach of the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture ranges approximately between the Wilga and middle Bug rivers although some east-Przeworsk features reveal in the west part of Lublin region, mostly along the Vistula, as well as west of middle Vistula, on the lower Pilica river and southwards. The nature of the east-Przeworsk zone suggest that the internal relationship of its people could have been based on their tribal difference from the population of the remaining Przeworsk Culture territory, however associated with them into an ethnic community of upper level. A distinct costume or at least some of its elements could be recognised as important sign of such self-identity. Spreading in phases B2 and B2/C1–C1a of the east-Przeworsk attributes generally south- and westwards is probably a consequence of some migrations correlated with a progressive process of cultural alteration in the territory of the eastern zone of Przeworsk Culture (T. Dąbrowska 1981a; 1981b; J. Andrzejowski 1989; cf. K. Godłowski 1985, 67ff.; 1986; A. Kokowski 1986; J. Okulicz 1989). The gradual progress of this change based doubtlessly on the former lively relationships of both cultures. Some features of the early stage of the Wielbark Culture in the newly assimilated territories east of the middle Vistula may be recognised as the result of local adoption of the Przeworsk Culture principles. They are, for instance, continuing use of some Przeworsk Culture cemeteries (J. Andrzejowski 1989), large number of cross-bow brooches made of iron (W. Nowakowski 1994), high frequency of burnt pottery in graves, including urns (e.g. Ł. & J. Okuliczowie 1976; A. Kempisty 1968; J. Jaskanis 1996), some similarities of pottery (R. Wołągiewicz 1993), and probably also absence of the inhumation ritual in the phases B2/C1–C1a. We may suppose that at least a part of former Przeworsk population remained in its homeland. However, clear depopulation of this zone in the turn of the early and Late Roman Period (T. Dąbrowska 1981a; K. Godłowski 1985, 67ff.; J. Andrzejowski 1989) indicates, in spite of close mutual relation that east-Przeworsk tribes still kept their identity perhaps basing on the ethnic difference between them and the Wielbark Culture tribes.
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Późnorzymska zapinka z Łubnic, woj. świętokrzyskie

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Andrzejowski J.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2001
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vol. LV
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issue 55
55-63
EN
The collection of the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw (PMA, IV/7589) contains a fragment of bronze fibula, discovered originally at Łubnice, gm. Połaniec, woj. świętokrzyskie (Fig. 1). The discovery was made presumably by Erazm Majewski during his investigation late in the 19th c. A silver Roman coin, now lost, is also reported as having been found at Łubnice (E. Majewski 1900b, 89–90; 1901, 97–99, 148). The fibula has a faceted bow, a foot ending in a profiled knob and a high catchplate. The bow and the foot are ornamented with coils of incised wire. The catchplate, decorated on the outside with a diagonal engraved cross, holds a short peg with coils of incised wire and profiled terminals. The length of the surviving fragment is 3.5 cm (Fig. 2a). The fibula may be linked with Almgren type 211 (1923, 91–93, 96, pl. IX:211) but without knowing the construction of the fastening it is difficult to say whether it represents a “classic specimen of group A.VII specimens having a cross-bow string, or the so-called Sarmatian variant of fibulae with a high catchplate and an upper string. The latter are much more numerous on Przeworsk Culture territory (A. Kietlińska, T. Dąbrowska 1963, 188–189; R. Kenk 1977, 329–333; K. Godłowski 1977, 23–24; 1988, 38–41). On Przeworsk territory chronology of fibulae of group A.VII series 1 fits with phases B2/C1–C1a. Specimens of the so-called Sarmatian variant continue slightly longer in use disappearing only in phase C1b. Richly decorated specimens similar to the find from Łubnice are thought to be younger within the group. Features of the fibula from Łubnice (very high catchplate, facetting of the bow and foot, incised wire coils) suggest that it may be dated – irrespective of the original construction of its spring – to phases C1a–C1b. Analogies to the distinct ornamentation of the catchplate seen on the fibula from Łubnice are almost unknown. I am aware of only three such specimens. Cemetery at Żalęcino, woj. zachodniopomorskie, grave 33A on the western periphery of Wielbark Culture (P. Kaczanowski, R. Madyda-Legutko, E. Nawrolska 1984, 75, fig. 5.25:1) produced a bronze fibula decorated with wire coils and application of silver incised wire. Its catchplate held a short peg, both its sides decorated with coiled wire, ending in decorative knobs (Fig. 2d). The grave assemblage is dated to phase B2/C1–C1a. The next analogy is from Przeworsk culture cemetery at Cząstków Polski, woj. mazowieckie, grave 21 (unpublished material from excavations of M.Kulisiewicz), which yielded a heavily damaged silver fibula – originally having a very high catchplate and rich ornamentation. The pin held by the catchplate had knobs at both its ends, which are identical with those seen on the axis of the spring (Fig. 2c). Finally, the third, also silver, fibula originates from the settlement of the Dacian group Militari-Chilia from Mătăsaru, dép. Dîmboviţa in Muntenia, where it is dated to AD 3rd – beginning of the 4th c. (Gh. Bichir 1984, 47–48, pl. XXXIX:1). The pin in the catchplate is ornamented with profiled knobs (Fig. 2b). The fibula belongs to late variants of series 1 of group A.VII. A similarly ornamented specimen was found at a Wielbark Culture cemetery at Elbląg–Pole Nowomiejskie (S. Anger 1880, 117, pl. V:25): its catchplate held a relatively peg coiled with wire, evidently in the imitation of the fibula spring fibula (Fig. 2e). The specimen in question typologically is most probably linked with crossbow fibulae having afull catchplate, elongated foot and an elongated knob on the head2, known from Bornholm (cf. e.g. E. Vedel 1886, fig. 274; O. Klindt-Jensen 1957, fig.87, 88; A. Bitner-Wróblewska 1991, 233–236, fig. 7). It may be dated to the Migration Period, most likely, its younger phase (cf. L. Jørgensen 1989; A. Bitner-Wróblewska 1992). The fibula would probably be associated with the settlement of Balt population in the region3. Decorative pegs held by the catchplate seen in the fibulae cited here appear to be a transformed form of the distinct ornamentation of the foot. Several of similarly ornamented knee-shaped fibulae from phase B2 have been found on the northern fringe of the Elbian culture circle: Hamburg–Marmstorf, site 9 (W. Wegewitz 1964, 58, pl. 15:29, 43:209), Garlstorf, site 27 (unpublished material in the Helms-Museum in Hamburg; cf.W.Thieme 1984) and Archsum on the island of Sylt (K. Kersten, P.LaBaume 1958, 371, pl. 146:3, 5). They may be, in turn, a far echo of early LaTène fibulae with a pseudo-spring on the foot from phases LT A and LT B (K. Peschel 1972). Also a relic of the same La Tène motif may be the loop of decoratively coiled wire seen on the foot of fibulae from the close of the early and the onset of the Late Roman Period. (J.Andrzejowski 1992). Erazm Majewski discovered in close vicinity of Łubnice other Przeworsk culture sites dated to the early phase of the Late Roman Period (Fig. 1). A larger number of finds originate only from Beszowa, gm. Połaniec (E. Majewski 1901, 144–146; 1911, 130). Most of them were published (T.Liana 1962, 47–48, pl. X, XI), but a dozen-odd was identified only after T. Liana’s study appeared in print. They include fragments of bronze and iron fibulae, a bronze needle, iron rivet of a composite comb, bronze belt-end fitting and two beads (Fig. 3). The finds confirm that the cemetery at Beszowa was especially intensively used in phase C1a. Other Przeworsk culture sites in the region produced only isolated finds (Fig. 4). Concentration of Przeworsk culture sites inside the triangle formed by the lower course of Wschodnia and Czarna Rivers and the Vistula registered by Majewski has been confirmed in recent years by results of systematic excavation and field survey. Well-identified cemeteries are those at Grzybów (K. Garbacz 1990; E. and K. Garbacz 1990), gm. Staszów, and Zawada, gm. Połaniec (B. Chomentowska 1983; B. Chomentowska, J.Michalski, E. Twarowska 1985, 9–10, fig. 10–13; B. Chomentowska, J.Michalski 1988a; 1988b; 1992). An extensive settlement from the Roman Period was discovered at Sichów Duży, gm. Staszów. The latter locality may also have harboured a cemetery as is suggested by an old (from before 1945?) photograph preserved by the Museum showing two shield-bosses (type J.7a and J.6) and blacksmith’s tongs, signed Sichów, pow. stopnicki (Fig. 5). Sichów also produced a Domitian denarius (L. Piotrowicz 1934, 101; M. Gumowski 1958, 114).
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Zapomniane złoto – nieznane cmentarzysko kultury przeworskiej z Plebanki na Kujawach

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Andrzejowski J.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2014
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vol. LXV
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issue 65
95-124
EN
In the summer of 1919 Józef Kostrzewski, Director of the Prehistory Seminar of the Philosophy Department at the newly founded University of Poznań, made the first museum review in the newly independent Poland; he started his several weeks’ tour at Włocławek. Archaeological materials collected at that time are invaluable today because many of them are our only record on otherwise unknown artefacts, subsequently destroyed or gone missing during World War II. One of these specimens is a fragment of a gold twisted bar neckring with a pear-shaped fastening then held by the regional museum in Włocławek. The neckring had been offered to the museum by Jerzy Raczyński, son of the director of the spa in nearby Ciechocinek. From what is known about Raczyński son, this must have happened between August 1914 and August 1915. During World War II most of the collections of the Włocławek museum were destroyed or stolen, and the neckring shared this fate. In literature it remains largely unknown. Kostrzewski mentioned it briefly only once, in 1955, after which date the neckring virtually dropped out of sight. In the drawing made by Kostrzewski the surviving neckring fragment has a length of c. 95 mm, its rod body has a thickness of c. 4 m and the pear-shaped fastening is without decoration (Fig. 1). Kostrzewski recorded that the neckring was discovered by accident in “a pit”, dug in a sheepfold of what was then a manor farm of Plebanka, nowadays in Aleksandrów Kujawski County (Fig. 2), under a stone (or stones?), next to (inside?) an ornamented clay pot, together with some fragments of (human?) bones and copper. A sketch shows the fastening part of the neckring, as visibly distorted, presumably in fire (Fig. 1, 3:a). This suggests that the finds came from a cremation grave, probably urned, covered with a stone slab (or a number of smaller stones). Even though all the records pertaining to the former landed estate Plebanka were lost during World War II, and the farm buildings were rebuilt or pulled down, locating the former sheepfold with precision is still possible, thanks to the information of the elderly inhabitants of the village. The grave discovered there just after the outbreak of World War I could belong to a prehistoric cemetery, never recorded, found on the eastern margin of a compact cluster of Przeworsk Culture settlement in the Kujawy region (Fig. 2). The neckring itself is one of a group of elite male ornaments, recognized as symbols of power and social status. Gold twisted bar neckrings with a pear-shaped fastening (type ÄEG 376) are known mainly from Scandinavia (Fig. 3–5), and dated to phase C1b, possibly also, to phase C2. The neckring from Plebanka is one of the rare individual specimens of this type discovered to the south of the Baltic Sea, and it is also the first of its kind to surface on Przeworsk Culture territory. Two gold neckrings type ÄEG 376 were recorded in Wielbark Culture territory, at Dobrocin/Wilamowo, Ostróda County (Fig. 3:c), and at Gardeja/Szlemno, Kwidzyn County (Fig. 3:b), both in northern Poland (Fig. 5). To be precise, the neckring recorded as discovered at Dobrocin (former Groß Bestendorf, Kr. Mohrungen) was found on land then belonging to a grange of Klein Wilmsdorf. Nowadays this is the area of village Wilamowo (former Wilmsdorf, Kr. Mohrungen), bordering Dobrocin, hence the double provenance given for this particular find – “Dobrocin/Wilamowo”. The situation of the other neckring find is similar: it was discovered in 1894 at a location then known as Abbau Garnseedorf, Kr. Marienwerder. Until 1936 Garnseedorf (Polish Szlemno vel Ślemno) was a village close to the town Garnsee (Polish, Gardeja); Abbau Garnseedorf may refer to a number of farms that were found to the east, south and west of Garnseedorf. At present, any of the fields belonging to those farms may be identified as a findspot of the gold neckring. In 1936 Garnseedorf was made part of Garnsee, the present-day village of Gardeja, hence the double name used for this find – Gardeja/Szlemno. Recently, one more gold twisted neckring came into light in the same region, in the largest known cemetery of the Wielbark Culture at Czarnówko, Lębork County. However, it is not certain whether its fastening was pear-shaped, because both terminals of this specimen are missing (Fig. 12). The same applies to a very small fragment of a neckring, presumably also type ÄEG 376, recovered from a Przeworsk Culture cemetery at Jadowniki Mokre 1, Tarnów County, in southern Poland (Fig. 5). From the area to the south of the Baltic Sea comes one more gold neckring of this type. It was discovered at Gęstowice, Krosno Odrzańskie County (Fig. 3:b), in one of the most richly furnished graves of the Luboszyce Culture. Despite repeated publication this specimen remains almost unknown, since together with the other gold objects from the same grave in 1923 it was sold for scrap metal and presumably melted down. The largest and heaviest of all the complete neckrings attributed to type ÄEG is the one from Dobrocin/Wilamowo, with a diameter of 182–185 mm and weighing 151.2 g; the lightest was the neckring from Gardeja/Szlemno, with a weight of c. 30–40 g and a diameter of nearly 140 mm. The neckring from Czarnówko may have also been one of the lighter specimens – its weight, estimated on the basis of the fragments could have been c. 40–50 g. The original weight of the neckring from Gęstowice is estimated as in the range of c. 85–115 g. The weight of the Scandinavian neckrings fits between c. 50 g (Källunge parish, Gotland) and more than 130 g (Valkerby, Södermanland). The majority of the gold twisted bar neckrings with a pear-shaped fastening are stray finds. The neckring from Plebanka is the sixth, possibly seventh, specimen of this type, certain to come from a grave context. Three assemblages have a reliable dating: the grave from Dobrocin/Wilamowo – to phase C1b; grave R433 from Czarnówko – phase C1a; grave 7 from Neudorf-Bornstein – phase C2. Phases C1b–C2 or C2 is also the dating of a neckring from a grave at Heffinds in Gotland, but the integrity of this assemblage is open to discussion. Also the neckrings from the bog-finds Illerup and Porskjær in eastern Jutland are also dated to phase C1b. This supports a similar dating, within horizon of phases C1a–C1b, of the neckrings from Plebanka and from Gęstowice, and presumably, also of the neckring from Jadowniki Mokre. The site at Plebanka lies on the easternmost margin of a compact settlement concentration of the Przeworsk Culture in the Kujawy region. In the immediate neighbourhood of Plebanka, c. 2 km to the south-east lies the destroyed cemetery at Ostrowąs, with materials from the Late Pre-Roman Period and the Early Roman Period. Some 9 km to the north is a settlement complex at Otłoczyn, in use starting from the Late Pre-Roman Period until at least the younger stage of the Late Roman Period. At Przybranówko, c. 5 km to the south-west of Plebanka, we have a record on a grave dated reliably to phase B2, whereas a settlement complex at Opoki, c. 7 km to the west of Plebanka, includes a cemetery, investigated by excavation, established during the Late Pre-Roman period and used at least until phase C1a. A dozen-odd sites in the region of Plebanka investigated by a surface survey yielded finds of pottery made using the potter’s wheel, which dates them to the Late Roman Period (Fig. 3). Both gold twisted bar neckrings – from Plebanka and from Jadowniki Mokre – are exceptional finds in Przeworsk Culture territory. Leaving out the neckring set with garnets from Wrocław-Rędzin, dating from the first half of the 5th century, and thus, possibly with a “post-Przeworsk” attribution, to date only three gold neckrings were recorded here: one discovered in unknown circumstances in the region of Głogów, and two, from the elite burials (“princely graves”) at Wrocław-Zakrzów. Scanty and largely unconfirmed information on the circumstances of its discovery prevent a closer analysis of the grave inventory from Plebanka. Its seems however that this was a regular cremation grave, urned perhaps, of a man of high social status within the local tribal group, and possibly, also a member of an interregional military elite, who was buried during the 1st half of the 3rd century AD.
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The Eastern Zone of the Przeworsk culture – and what it comprehends

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Andrzejowski J.
Acta Archaeologica Carpathica
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2020
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vol. LV
9-38
EN
In phase B1, and very prominently – in phase B2 of the Roman Period, tribal groups of the north-eastern territories of the Przeworsk culture displayed a number of characteristic regional elements. These elements are mostly seen in female outfits that become much richer and more varied than elsewhere within the Przeworsk culture territory. The features specific for the Eastern Przeworsk Zone, like e.g., a very high frequency of dress elements made of copper alloys, would be largely the effect of mutual relations of these people with communities of the Wielbark culture from Eastern Pomerania. Though outwardly only ethnographic, this specificity of the material culture may have deeper underlying causes, since starting with phase B1, there is evidence of two basic types of Eastern Przeworsk cemeteries. In both cases, the women’s grave furnishings display general Eastern Przeworsk characteristics. In cemeteries of the first group weapon graves disappear already in early phase B1. These cemeteries fell out of use before the end of phase B2 and reflect the full, or nearly full withdrawal of the ‘Przeworsk’ community from that area. The second group form Przeworsk cemeteries with ‘standard’ weapon graves. From phase B2/C1 on, the Wielbark culture newcomers continued to use many of these cemeteries. Many of them were then continuously used from phase B2/C1 by the Wielbark culture newcomers. It appears that a part of the Przeworsk population from the Eastern Zone probably joined Gothic (Wielbark) tribes then moving south. Recently many brooches recognized traditionally as definitely ethnographic markers of the Przeworsk culture (types Almgren 43 and Almgren 129) have been registered in the western provinces of nowadays Ukraine. However, these finds are already much more numerous than those from the ‘core’ territory of the Przeworsk culture – for the time being, this phenomenon seems to be inexplicable.
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Wczesna Kragenifibel z Obór i problem jej pochodzenia

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Andrzejowski J.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2005
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vol. LVII
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issue 57
57-66
EN
A group of stray finds from the locality Obory, distr. Piaseczno, acquired by the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw in 2002 comprises some more than twenty copper alloy pieces, dating mostly from phases B1–B2/C1. The artefacts had been collected from an area of about 1 hectare although most had been discovered in a cluster less than 0.5 ha in area. Some of these objects are partly melted or bear traces of fire. One of the more remarkable items in this set is the brooch, obviously an imported form (Fig. 1:1). The piece does not bear traces of fire, a part of its foot and catchplate and the pin are missing, its surviving length is 5.5 cm. The 6-coil spring with an upper chord is secured by a hook (at present damaged) and enclosed by a narrow and a thin support plate (Stützplatte). The lightly expanded relatively strongly curved triangular bow continues to a circular disc-like crest. The solid foot tapers lightly to the catchplate; the latter originally was openwork in form, probably with large rectangular apertures. The bow and foot are ornamented on the dorsal face and along the edges with finely engraved lines. The brooch from Obory is very similar to specimen discovered at a Przeworsk culture cemetery at Konopnica (Fig. 1:2) on the middle Warta river, unfortunately, another incomplete find. The next nearly identical and – happily – intact brooch is known from Nitriansky Hrádok (Fig. 1:3a.b), south western Slovakia. In this 6.6. cm specimen the foot ends abruptly; the catchplate is of openwork design reminiscent of a ladder, with two “meander rungs”. Two further similar brooches are known from the Przeworsk cemetery at Siemianice (Fig. 2:2a.b), on the upper Warta river, and from a gravefield at Tišice (Fig. 2:1) in the Bohemian Basin. Both are visibly larger (10.5 and 10.4 cm respectively), have an 8-coil spring, slightly narrower head, profiled hook and a long foot in elaborate openwork design crowned with a small round knob. The brooch from Siemianice occurred in a well-known grave assemblage together with a bronze jug type Eggers 122, datable to the younger stage of phase A3, ie end of the second half of 1st century BC or, at the latest, to the turn of the era. With a “classic” Almgren 18a brooch the deposit from Tišice is one of the diagnostic assemblages for phase A of the Roman Period in Bohemian Basin (so-called horizon of type Plaňany beakers), correlated to 35/25–10/5 BC. The specimens from Konopnica and Nitriansky Hrádok cannot be dated more closely. The brooches of interest (cf fig. 3) present a certain difficulty even at the stage of classification. Without doubt they are a foreign form in the Germanic environment. In their general morphological attributes they correspond to the group of the youngest late La Tène brooches (geschweifte Fibeln). The dominant plastic element – ie expanded triangular bow with a distinct constriction before passing into the knob – visibly recalls stylistic features of Gaulish Kragenfibeln, which correspond to Almgren type 239. Some researchers propose to place the brooch forms in question specifically or more broadly in the group of Kragenfibeln, or to the group of early “prototype” forms (Vorform Bern-Gergovia; cf fig. 4:3–6), from which derive Kragenfibeln “proper”, or, ultimately, to the group of late La Tène brooches type Weisenau-Hörgertshausen – prototype of the Bern-Gergovia variant. Weisenau-Hörgertshausen brooches are dated to phase LT D2, possibly, its older stage. Bern-Gergovia brooches come on record around the mid-1st century BC just before the emergence of the horizon of the oldest variant of “proper” Kragenfibeln, ie, the Goeblingen-Niederolm brooch variant (cf fig. 4:1.2). Other researchers, presumably following in Peter Glüsing’s footsteps, classify the forms in question to the group of East Alpine brooches, Almgren type 18. In his detailed typology Stefan Demetz classifies the specimens of interest as a separate variant 18b2a, said to have developed as a result of stylistic impact from the Kragenfibeln environment. Included in the same variant are three further – unpublished – brooches: two from Magdalensberg in Karinthia and one from Karlstein in south-eastern Bavaria. Yet another brooch, similar both to the variant 18b2a and to Kragenfibeln, is known from Bregenz in Voralberg (Fig. 4:7). However, this rather fragmented piece evidently represents the Bern-Gergovia variant of early Gaulish Kragenfibeln. According to Demetz, brooch forms from Gaul and Raetia similar to variant 18b2a are prototypes (Vorlaüfer) or oldest variants (Frühformen) of the fully evolved Kragenfibeln wholly unrelated to eastern specimens. The large brooch from Besançon in Burgundy may be an intermediate form (Fig. 4:3), considered by Michele Feugère as derivative of the Kragenfibeln “proper”. The direction charted by Demetz was recently taken up by Ronald Bockius and Piotr Łuczkiewicz, who without substantiating their claim in a satisfactory manner, and contrary to the views of Demetz and Feugère, have included in variant 18b2a also three brooches from western Gaul, forms evidently corresponding to prototypes of the Bern-Gergovia variant of Kragenfibeln, or possibly, to the local early variants of Kragenfibeln (cf fig. 4:3–6). Consequently it is a vital question which view is correct – that of Astrid Böhme-Schönberger (variant of type geschweifte brooches, from which proper Kragenfibeln developed), or that of Stefan Demetz (variant of Almgren type 18, developed under influence from Kragenfibeln). The resolution of this dilemma now depends on the publication of brooches from Magdalensberg and Karlstein. Until this happens we can only say that the published ”barbarian” specimens of brooches discussed above represent two distinct forms, visibly differing in size and style of the openwork design of the catchplate and the terminal of the foot namely, the Obory-Konopnica-Nitriansky Hrádok and the Siemianice-Tišice form. The former may without much hesitation be referred to prototypes of Kragenfibeln, variant Bern-Gergovia (Feugère variant 10a2 or Metzler type 10b). Less clear on the other hand is the position of forms having an elaborate openwork design of the catchplate and a knob at the end of the foot – elements clearly recalling the style of type Weisenau-Hörgertshausen brooches (Metzler type 4c). If we accept the dating of the Bern-Gergovia variant as the third quarter of the 1st century BC (ie, approximately, onset of phase A3 in Przeworsk culture and the Tišice horizon in the Bohemian Basin) and take note of the early typological attributes of Siemianice-Tišice variant brooches (profiled hooks and “garland” support plates) we shall narrow down the chronology of “barbarian” brooches of both variants to the oldest horizons of the phases in question. The discussed brooches (which I propose to distinguish as type Siemianice-Besançon, from the find-spots of the two earliest-published specimens) offer interesting insight on the exchange between central European “barbarians” and the inhabitants of the Western Celtic region at the close of the La Tène Period. The influx of these brooch forms to Poland may be linked with the Przeworsk settlement activity in the Wetterau region, ie, in the immediate neighbourhood of the domains of the Treverii. It is accepted quite generally that Przeworsk archaeological material from this region, dated mostly to phase A2, may be linked to the participation of this folk in the tribal league of Ariovistus. Type Siemianice-Besançon brooches would indirectly confirm a thesis put forward by Mathias Seidel that the later traces of Przeworsk settlement in Wetterau dating from the latter half of the 1st century BC are the effect of influx of further groups of settlers from the East rather than evidence of the survival of unacculturated peoples from older waves of settlement. The question of provenance of the two other Kragenfibeln discovered in Poland (Fig. 3) is altogether different. Both – one of them discovered in the Przeworsk culture area, at Juncewo, distr. Żnin, the other in the Bogaczewo culture area, near Węgorzewo is known from the collection of parson Pisanski – are “classic” Trier-Wincheringen forms, the variant which is restricted in its distribution definitely to the area of north-eastern Gaul, between the Rhine, Moselle and Meuse, region inhabited by the Celtic Treverii. The variant is visibly younger than Vorform Bern-Gergovia, in use mainly during the middle and late reign of Augustus and early Tiberius. Neither of these two brooches can be dated more closely and must be tied to the horizon of brooches of western provenance which began flowing to the Central European Barbaricum as early as 1st century AD and are recorded in assemblages of evidently early Roman character. Contrary to earlier views, in case of Kragenfibeln “proper” their influx from the south and their association with the Amber Route, if not altogether unfeasible, is highly unlikely.
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Między Północą a Południem. Zespół osadniczy z późnej epoki żelaza w Jarnicach nad Liwcem w świetle dalekosiężnych powiązań

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Andrzejowski J., Maciałowicz A.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2017
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vol. LXVIII
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issue 68
179-234
EN
In 2015, a verification surface survey of a complex of Przeworsk Culture sites found to the south of the village of Jarnice, in south-western Podlasie, eastern Poland (Fig. 1) led to the discovery of three remarkable copper alloy objects: 1. Fragment of a bimetallic ball-brooch (Kugelfibel), i.e. its decorative piece made of copper alloy cast over the iron wire of the brooch bow and curving foot, its fragments projecting at two ends of the artefact. The decorative piece has the form of two plano-convex circular elements (‘balls’) and a smaller element (‘linking piece’); on each ‘ball’ is an engraved, diagonal cross. Surviving L. 38 mm (L. of decorative piece 26 mm), ‘ball’ diameter 10 × 13–13.5 mm, height: 5.5 mm (Fig. 2:1). 2. Fragment of a personal ornament of copper alloy, made of a rod with three strands of pseudo-plaitwork and a now incomplete ring with three plano-convex knobs. L. ca. 40 mm, D. of rod ca. 2.5–6 mm (Fig. 2:2). 3. Knee brooch of copper alloy. Narrow bow, bent at a right angle, on the head, a low, residual crest with two sharp grooves below which, a sub-rectangular plate with two openings: for the spring axle and for the upper chord. L. 50–52 mm (Fig. 2:3). The artefacts were recovered from the topsoil on the margin of settlements, Jarnice site 22 and 23. Of these the first is known only from a 1985 field survey, the second is known since the 1960s and was excavated to a very limited extent (75 m2). Fragments of prehistoric pottery from the two sites are mostly sherds of Przeworsk Culture vessels. In site 23 the assemblage was dominated by fragments of vessels from phases A1 and A2 of the Late Pre-Roman Period, including individual rims resembling forms known from the so-called Jastorf Culture in the Polish Lowland (Fig. 3:2–5), and a much smaller group of Early Roman pottery fragments; also assigned to the Przeworsk Culture is a spindlewhorl find (Fig. 3:1). In site 22 the rather small group of characteristic pottery fragments all belong to Early Roman forms. Immediately to the south, in site 19, is a third settlement with Przeworsk Culture pottery, this time, mostly Early Roman. It is possible that these three sites are actually the remnants of one, long-lived Przeworsk Culture settlement spread out on the edge of the upper flood terrace of the Liwiec River. A small, now defunct stream divided the settlement from a small rise lying at an elevation of ca. 1–2 metres above the river valley bottom (Fig. 4). This location, referred to as Okopy or Za okopami [“Earthworks, “Beyond the Earthworks], has been identified with a Przeworsk Culture cemetery, Jarnice site 1, discovered in the latter half of the 19th century (Fig. 5). In 1878, Tymoteusz Łuniewski (1847–1905), landowner and entrepreneur of the nearby Korytnica, and also an amateur archaeologist, and Józef Przyborowski (1823–1896), philologist, librarian, historian and archaeologist then in charge of the Zamoyski Library (Biblioteka Ordynacji Zamoyskich) unearthed here “six large cinerary urns set about and covered with stones, filled with burn human bone remains. Even earlier, the cemetery was being dug up by local peasants, and later still, by other local amateur archaeologists, one of them being the Notary Dąbrowski of Węgrów, the finder of “2 pottery vessels and 1 vessel base, as well as a bronze fibula. To this day only the artefacts from a single urned grave inventory have survived: fragments of an iron brooch, type K with an openwork in the foot frame, a clay spindlewhorl (Fig. 6), and many small sherds from a pottery vessel with a glossy black surface, presumably the cinerary urn belonging to the same grave inventory. The brooch assigns the burial to phase A2 of the Late Pre-Roman Period. Furthermore, during archaeological excavations and surface surveys made on this site in the second half of the 20th century a large series of Przeworsk Culture pottery was recovered, mostly from phases A1–A2, with a small group of fragments of Early Roman Period pottery; individual sherds may be linked with the so-called Jastorf Culture in the Polish Lowland (Fig. 3:6). The type K brooch with an openwork roundel in the front part of the foot frame is evidence of exchange between Mazovia, the lower Vistula region, Bornholm and the Elbe drainage (Fig. 7, 8). The Jarnice find may be interpreted as proof of outside influences reaching here from the west or – which is more likely – from the north. The artefacts recovered in 2015 alter substantially the earlier understanding of the settlement complex identified at Jarnice and of its significance within the settlement microregion in the Liwiec Valley. The first of them is an incomplete bimetallic ball-brooch (Kugelfibel) – its decorative piece made of copper alloy cast over the iron wire of the brooch bow and its curving foot (Fig. 2:1, 9:4). The decorative piece consists of two ‘balls’ decorated with a diagonally engraved cross connected by a ‘linking piece’. So far, brooches with traits described here have not been separated in the classification systems devised for ball-brooches, although their finds are known from Poland and Bornholm (cf. A. Bieger 2003). In this article we propose to name this form – after its best preserved specimen – variant Blanchs Hotel. It is represented by three bimetallic specimens from Bornholm (e.g., the cemetery Blanchs Hotel, described incorrectly by A. Bieger as made of bronze only), two from a cemetery of the Oksywie Culture at Rumia near Gdańsk, and three others, from Kujavia, then the territory settled by the Przeworsk Culture folk (Fig. 9). The brooches are nearly identical, except that the pair of finds from Rumia, grave 85, and the specimen from Nørre Sandegård, grave 322, rather than being decorated with a diagonal cross motif feature a very similar motif of a rectangle with recessed sides. A number of still other brooches differ from the variant Blanchs Hotel in having a differently shaped ‘linking piece’ (Fig. 10:1–3) or in lacking the ornament (Fig. 10:4) although the latter could be due to their damaged condition. Three other, similar specimens made entirely of copper alloy originate from the territory of the Oksywie Culture (Fig. 10:5). In one, possibly two brooches, the engraved crosses were filled in with red enamel (Fig. 9:7, 10:2a). Generally speaking, at present nine brooches are known classified to the variant Blanchs Hotel, plus seven more, similar to this variant. They cluster in East Pomerania (six specimens) and in Kuyavia (five specimens), as well as on Bornholm (four specimens); the find from Jarnice is the most south-easterly find of this brooch form (Fig. 11). Because of the small number of better dated assemblages the chronology of the variant Blanchs Hotel and related forms is hard to specify. However, there is everything to show that it spans phase 1 of the cemetery at Nørre Sandegård, thus, approximately, the late stage of phase A1 of the Late Pre-Roman Period. A. Bieger has suggested a somewhat broader dating for the ball-brooches from Bornholm and Poland, assigning them to phases LT C2–D1a in the La Tène Culture chronology, which corresponds to the late stage of phase A1 and the beginning of phase A2. Brooches classified to the variant Blanchs Hotel and similar forms – although evidence of contacts with Bornholm – were probably manufactured also in northern Poland. This is supported not only by the evidently larger pool of these finds from this area, but also by the fact that only from the lower Vistula region we have a record on specimens made of copper alloy only. In the same cemeteries where ball-brooches were present other brooches have been recorded, which although they are likely to have been manufactured locally attest connections with craftsmen of Bornholm (Fig. 12). On the other hand, the influx from Bornholm of at least some of the variant Blanchs Hotel brooches (and similar forms) might be supported by the use of red enamel to decorate the cross motifs engraved on the ‘balls’. This is because at present it is hard to prove the existence of enamelling centres on the lower Vistula, whereas it is legitimate to expect them on Bornholm, where at least a dozen-odd ball-brooches decorated in this manner have been found (variants different from the one described here), and in north-western Poland, in the territory of the Oder Group of the Jastorf Culture. In summary, it is likely that in the lower Vistula area (East Pomerania, Kuyavia) there were craftsmen who manufactured bimetallic or bronze brooches according to the northern European styles and metalworking tradition. This may be linked to the emergence at the beginning of the Late Pre-Roman Period of a triangle, described previously in the literature, of close ties between the lower Odra River region (Oder Group of the Jastorf Culture), the lower Vistula (Oksywie Culture) and Bornholm. At present we can place within the same network of connections also Kuyavia, where not only the Przeworsk Culture settlement is noted, but also – similarly as in the lower Vistula region – the so-called Jastorf Culture in the Polish Lowland. The traditions of this latter grouping have been traced back to northern Germany and Jutland, thus the cultural proximity of these communities to the northern European world would have facilitated the establishing of close relations. Their effect would have been the appearance in the territory of Poland of craftsmen capable of manufacturing the bronze and bimetallic brooches discussed here. Thus, the find from Jarnice may be interpreted as an import from the lower Vistula region, or from Kuyavia, rather than a direct import from Bornholm. In correspondence with this interpretation is the chemical composition of its decorative piece, similar to the composition of brooches with Bornholm connotations recorded in the Oksywie Culture cemetery at Podwiesk (Table 1; cf. Fig. 10:2, 12:2). However, we have to recall that the database for comparison is very modest, and even more importantly, there are no analyses of similar finds from Bornholm. Therefore it seems legitimate to link the ball-brooch from Jarnice with fragments of pottery recorded in sites 1 and 23, attributed to the so-called Jastorf Culture in the Polish Lowland (Fig. 3:2–6). An artefact which lends itself to a similar interpretation is a fragment of a bronze brooch, type Gotland, held by the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw (Fig. 13:1). It was discovered by accident in the early 21st century “on the Liwiec/Bug Rivers thus, in the same part of Poland as the Jarnice ball-brooch. This is a hemispherical (hollow) decorative piece of a brooch, cast of copper alloy, retaining inside the wire of the brooch bow also made of copper alloy. On the upper face of the decorative piece is a diagonally engraved cross. Originally, the decorative piece would have been cast over the brooch bow and the terminal of its curving foot, this is shown by numerous analogies from Gotland (Fig. 13:2, 14). On the other hand, the piece from Jarnice was fully cast of copper alloy, while the specimens from Gotland are bimetallic, with an iron bow and spring. E. Nylén described this group of brooches as iron fibulae with heavy ornaments on the bow, but in this text we refer to them as: type Gotland. The next distinctive trait of the brooch found “on the Liwiec/Bug Rivers is a cross engraved atop the decorative piece; in brooches type Gotland engraved decoration is exceedingly rare, is of a different design, and appear, moreover, on specimens in which the decorative piece is more attenuated (pear-shaped). As noted earlier by other researchers, similar bimetallic brooches have surfaced on Bornholm. However, their hemispherical decorative pieces are a little less domed, provided instead with globular knobs at both ends, and often, decorated also with a diagonal cross or a similar engraved motif (Fig. 15). Unfortunately they have not been analysed yet, and the number of 12 specimens known to us at present is likely to be understated. Here, they are referred to as variant Nørre Sandegård of type Bornholm. At least two specimens which resemble this variant are recorded in other areas of Scandinavia, but they display some differences in their construction and style (Fig. 16). The dating of brooches type Bornholm may be synchronized with the late stage of phase A1, possibly also the beginning of phase A2. Four type Bornholm brooches have been recovered in Poland, most of them by accident. The bronze decorative piece of an iron brooch from Perkowo in Kuyavia (Fig. 17:1) definitely may be referred to the variant Nørre Sandegård (cf. Fig. 15:7.9.11). The three other are nearly identical, only made entirely of copper alloy, which leads us to separate them into a different variant – Kobylarnia (Fig. 17:2–4). In two cases, the cross engraved on their decorative pieces had been filled with a red enamel inlay (Fig. 17:2.3). While the presence of the brooch type Bornholm at Perkowo in Kuyavia does not surprise, given the analysis of the ball-brooches, it is interesting that the two brooches classified to the variant Kobylarnia with a known provenance were both found in Great Poland (Fig. 18). At the beginning of the Late Pre-Roman Period this was an area outside the zone of compact Przeworsk Culture settlement, but one that was penetrated by communities of the so-called Jastorf Culture in the Polish Lowland, and by the Oder Group of the Jastorf Culture. Given that no specimens type Bornholm made of bronze only (variant Kobylarnia) are known from that island, at the present stage of inquiry we have to conclude that presumably they were manufactured somewhere in western or northern Poland. This is significant in so far as that in two cases, these brooches had been decorated with red enamel. Therefore, the variant Kobylarnia would be yet another piece of evidence for the presence in this part of Poland (lower Vistula region, Kuyavia, possibly also northern Great Poland) of centres, as yet unspecified as to their location and culture attribution, where northern brooch styles were adopted and given a new, local form, in this particular case, using advanced decorative technologies (enamelling). Apparently, also the brooch found “on the Liwiec/Bug Rivers may be linked with these centres. In its form it represents type Gotland, but the use of bronze only, and the ornament of a diagonal cross do not find analogy on that island, on the other hand, it corresponds well with the description of brooches manufactured in these conjectural workshops. As such the artefact found “on the Liwiec/Bug Rivers may be interpreted similarly as the ball-brooch from Jarnice, consequently, not so much as a direct import from Scandinavia as an import from the northern reaches of the Polish Lowland. A rather interesting object is the fragment of a personal ornament made of lead bronze (Table 2) using the lost wax process, with a characteristic pseudo-plaitwork decoration (Fig. 2:2). This object corresponds in its description to circular ornaments (bracelets or armrings) type Şimleul Silvaniei, most likely, variant Rustoiu 3a (Fig. 19). Basing on the evidence of the very small number of better dated assemblages, these forms have been assigned to a period spanning phase LT D1 and the older phase of the Early Roman Period. According to the accepted view, the rings type Şimleul Silvaniei are a local, Dacian version of earlier Celtic ornaments, and outside this zone – they are evidence of exchange with the Dacian world. However, the distribution range of the recent, fairly numerous finds makes it necessary to treat this interpretation with caution given that at present the decided majority of specimens of this type is been recorded outside the Dacian territory (Fig. 20). While from Dacia we have just one recent find, from Poland we have no less than 12 or 13 recent finds of type Şimleul Silvaniei ornaments, three other from Bohemia, and three more from western Ukraine (Fig. 21). Some of these objects deserve closer attention; in particular, the two circular ornaments from the cemetery at Wolny Dwór in East Pomerania. They were discovered in an inhumation burial from phase B1, their location in relation the skeletal remains proving that they were not armrings or bracelets. Another find, from Kisielany-Żmichy in eastern Poland, at a small distance from Jarnice, is a large fragment of a ring ornament classified to the rare variant Rustoiu 3b (Fig. 21:3). Next, there is an ornament (armring) of the same variant, belonging to a hoard from phase LT D1 found near Lužany in north-eastern Czech Republic (Fig. 21:11), and an armring from the Ternopìl' region in western Ukraine while it has the traits of variant Rustoiu 3a, but its body is in the form of two strands of pseudo-plaitwork (Fig. 22), as some Celtic ornaments recognized as prototypes of type Şimleul Silvaniei. The internal diameter of rings type Şimleul Silvaniei ranges between c. 60–65 mm and over 100 mm. Their accepted interpretation is that – depending on their size – these ornaments were worn as bracelets or as armrings but drawing a line between these two categories is not easy. Their comparison with the size of the unprofiled and shield-headed bracelets recovered in Przeworsk Culture and Wielbark Culture cemeteries shows that the functional, internal diameter of the bracelet, ie, the one preventing the ring from slipping from the wrist, basically should not exceed c. 65 mm. Consequently, only the smallest of rings type Şimleul Silvaniei could have been worn as bracelets, the others are likely to be armrings. Thus, among the Polish finds, we can interpret as bracelets the circular ornaments from Niedanowo, Lasy, Wolny Dwór, Kisielany-Żmichy, also presumably from the vicinity of Skierniewice and from Lubiechowo; the diameter of the ring from Malbork-Wielbark/Willenberg is on the border between the two. On the other hand, the dimensions of rings found in Dacia, the Czech Republic (except for the Nakleřov find), Slovakia and Ukraine, and those belonging to “the southern German collection, would identify them as armrings. Another possibility to consider in relation to rings type Şimleul Silvaniei of all sizes is that they could have been used as pendants. This is suggested by some large pendants, type Knotenring provided with a loop (with an outer diameter of as much as c. 87–94 mm), openwork spherical pendants, type Janów-Psary (with a diameter of up to c. 85–88 mm), and also, the assemblage from Wolny Dwór. There, two different rings type Şimleul Silvaniei were unearthed together with some ‘ordinary’ type Knotenring specimens, in a location and arrangement suggesting that their function was above all symbolic, perhaps they were amulets. An additional clue is obviously the first pendant type Şimleul Silvaniei discovered in a grave from phase B1 in the Przeworsk Culture cemetery at Czersk on the middle Vistula. For a few artefacts (Jarnice, Dębniałki, Kisielany-Żmichy) analyses of the chemical content of their alloy were made (Table 2). They established that the rings from Jarnice and Dębniałki (Fig. 20:1.3) were cast of lead bronze, but clearly differing in its composition, while the ring from Kisielany-Żmichy was made of an alloy described as so-called scrap brass; quite a different material (brass high in zinc content) was used in casting the pendant from Czersk. A still different composition (bronze high in zinc content) was identified by the only known analysis of a ring type Şimleul Silvaniei found outside Poland, found at Sedlec in the Bohemian Basin (Fig. 21:7). None of these alloys was found to contain molybdenum, for which element significant levels were identified in the rings ornaments from Brodnia, Pełczyska and Nowe Brzesko, investigated earlier. However, it needs noting that disquieting levels of molybdenum were demonstrated only by analyses made with the wd xrf method, these same objects tested using the ed xrf method were found to contain either an ‘acceptable’ level of this metal (Brodnia), or none at all. The newly completed analyses now make it possible to challenge the hypothesis that ring ornaments type Şimleul Silvaniei were manufactured of copper alloy having a peculiar, specially selected composition. The brooch with a knee-shaped bow and a crest on the head (Fig. 2:3, 23:1) while it is compatible with the definition of Almgren type 132, does not fits either the ‘classic’ type Almgren 132 or its Wielbark Culture variant, or any of its special variants. Examined in the context of other specimens made of copper alloy, taking into account its size, it actually has a single analogy – the brooch from grave 21 in a cemetery of the Przeworsk and the Wielbark Cultures at Krupice in eastern Poland (Fig. 23:2). To be sure, this grave inventory has been attributed to the Przeworsk Culture, but this identification bases on this is actually based on none other but this brooch. Iron brooches type Almgren 132 are characteristic for men’s clothing during the younger stage of phase B2 of the Przeworsk Culture. Specimens of copper alloy, in any case, a quite mixed group, are more rare (Fig. 24). Of these, the most interesting from our point of view, is a short, undecorated brooch found in grave 29 in the cemetery at Konin in south-eastern Great Poland, a form with a narrow bow and a small, transversely grooved crest (Fig. 24:1); this is because it is closest to the brooch find from Jarnice. On the other hand, Almgren 132 brooches made of coper alloy, often with applied silver and gold elements, are fairly numerous in Wielbark Culture sites dating to the close of phase B2 and to phase B2/C1. There are among them also ‘ordinary’, undecorated specimens which correspond closely to the Almgren model, e.g. the specimens from Nowy Łowicz in western Pomerania, Kowalewko in Great Poland, Zakrzewska Osada in the borderland of East Pomerania and Great Poland, and Gostkowo in Chełmno Land (Fig. 25:4). These brooches persuade us to attributed to the Wielbark Culture similar ‘ordinary’ brooches, type Almgren 132 made of copper alloy lacking context, recovered east of the middle Vistula, at Drozdowo, Jadwisin and Turza Wielka/Groß Tauersee, all in northern Mazowsze (Fig. 23:3–5). A further clue to the culture attribution of the brooch from Jarnice is provided by a bronze brooch, type Almgren 132, admittedly with a high crest, but one that is only a slightly wider than the head, and a high catchplate, diagonal in relation to the bow (Fig. 26), which is a typologically late trait; this specimen was found in grave 31 at Zakrzewska Osada, dated reliably to phase B2/C1. Quite a different point of reference for the brooch from Jarnice would be the local variant of knee brooches, type Almgren 132 (A.132a) from Bohemia and Moravia, with a low and narrow crest, with transverse grooves (Fig. 27). The same form of crest is seen also on some of the “bronze ‘Germanic’ knee brooches with a plate on the head (as defined by E. Droberjar) found in ‘barbarian’ sites in the Bohemian Basin, Lower Austria and western Slovakia, attributed to the time of the Marcomannic Wars. In conclusion, the more likely dating of the brooch from Jarnice would be phase B2/C1, its attribution to the earliest phase of the Wielbark Culture settlement in Mazowsze to the east of the Vistula river and in Podlasie, although obviously in view of the complicated archaeological situation of the Liwiec drainage during phase B2/C1, this issue must remain open. The settlement complex from the Late Pre-Roman Period and the Roman Periods situated on the edge of the Liwiec Valley to the south of the village of Jarnice still awaits a fuller recognition. The cemetery discovered here in the 1870s and excavated by amateurs over the decades that followed by and large remains uninvestigated. The only record which survives at present is the inventory of one urned burial from phase A2, and references to further artefacts, but with an obscure dating. The archaeological excavations made in the second half of the 1960s on a small tract of more elevated ground in the southern area of the site revealed only some very modest remains of a an ancient grave site all but obliterated by early medieval occupation and postmedieval ploughing. The large settlement (settlements?) found next to the cemetery is known virtually only from surface finds. The assemblage of prehistoric pottery from this settlement comprises, next to some uncharacteristic sherds with an obscure dating and culture attribution, fragments of Przeworsk Culture vessels from phases A1–A2 of the Late Pre-Roman Period, and from the Early Roman Period. In this situation special significance must be attached to the three copper alloy artefacts recovered here in 2015. The ball-brooch classified to the variant Blanchs Hotel found at Jarnice, and the brooch, type Gotland, found “on the Liwiec/Bug, attest to contacts of the local population with hypothetical metalworking centres with an unclear culture attribution, in operation in the region on the lower Vistula, Kuyavia and possibly in northern Great Poland. It seems legitimate to associate both these brooches with the pottery finds from Jarnice displaying the traits of the so-called Jastorf Culture in the Polish Lowland which had its centres of settlement precisely in Kuyavia and on the lower Vistula, but the presence of which has been confirmed also in northern Great Poland. Both brooches are datable to the late stage of phase A1, possibly, the beginning of phase A2. This was a time directly antedating, or roughly coinciding with, the emergence of the settlement network of the Przeworsk Culture in eastern Mazowsze and Podlasie, when long-lived cemeteries of this culture were being established. During phase A2 the cemetery at the nearby Karczewiec was set up, and possibly a little earlier – some 40 km more to the north, the burial ground at Kamieńczyk, site 1, at the confluence of the Liwiec and the Bug. It seems that a crucial role in the process of the emergence of the Przeworsk Culture in this part of Poland was played by stimuli reaching from the west, where this unit had taken shape sometime earlier. Consequently, the artefacts discussed here having an early dating (the two brooches and the pottery attributed to the so-called Jastorf culture in the Polish Lowland), although they cannot be linked easily with the Przeworsk Culture, could in some way be a part of this phenomenon. Some other Jastorf artefacts have surfaced in the region on the Liwiec River. From Grodzisk, site 4, at a distance of c. 3 km from Jarnice, comes a stray find of an incomplete bronze neck-ring (Fig. 28:2) with thick cylindrical terminals (Bronzehalsring mit verdictken Kolbenenden), from Kamieńczyk, site 11, near to cemetery (site 1) – a bronze winged pin (Fig. 28:1) of the Ostmecklenburg-Vorpommern type (Flügelnadel des ostmecklenburgisch-vorpommerscher Typs). Both these objects evidently may be traced to north-eastern Germany, but their appearance in the Liwiec Valley at the transition from the Older to the Late Pre-Roman Period, or possibly, at the beginning of the latter, is compatible with the concept of a communication route running eastward through northern Great Poland and Kuyavia. Taken together with the pottery described earlier, they have altered our earlier understanding of the very modest assemblage of finds that may be traced to the Jastorf Culture milieu in the broad sense. The early chronology of these finds, one which is ahead of the age of the heyday of the local Przeworsk Culture structures, leads to the conclusion that these ornaments and fasteners, rather exotic in eastern Poland, are not so much ‘ordinary’ imports, as evidence of the arrival in the region of possibly small groups of foreigners. The presence of these outsiders might have been one of a number of catalysts in the process of culture transformation in the region of interest. It is also interesting that the only grave inventory known from the cemetery at Jarnice confirms the connections of the local community with the North and the West also in a later age, in the mature phase A2. This is documented by the iron brooch, type K with a foot frame decorated with an openwork roundel. The fragment of the ring ornament, type Şimleul Silvaniei is one of only a few such finds recorded to east of the middle Vistula. While its function remains unclear, without any greater doubt we are ready to date it to phase B1 and – which is obvious – link it with the Przeworsk Culture. More recent fairly numerous finds of ring ornaments recorded in central and northern Poland, but also, Bohemia, Moravia and western Ukraine, have substantially altered the earlier map of the distribution of type Şimleul Silvaniei ornaments. It seems also that we urgently need to rethink the hypothesis about their Dacian origin and consequently, the understanding that rings from outside that territory are Dacian imports, or evidence of Dacian impact. Furthermore, the newer finds confirm an observation made earlier that, to the north of the Carpathians, rings type Şimleul Silvaniei are discovered in assemblages of the Przeworsk Culture, or ones belonging to the Oksywie-Wielbark horizon – a little younger in general (phase B1) than rings found in Dacian and Celtic assemblages (phase LT D1–D2). However, it is striking that more than a few of the ‘northern’ rings show rather heavy wear (abrasion), possibly suggesting their extended use, and reducing the significance of this chronological difference; not less importantly, these heavily worn specimens are mostly confirmed, or suspected, grave finds. To be sure, this observation cannot be generalized without making a first-hand examination of the ‘southern’ rings nevertheless the published photographs suggest that most of these specimens display no apparent traces of use. An important aspect of the differences between the two territorial groups of rings type Şimleul Silvaniei is their size: the better preserved ‘southern’ rings are larger, even a good deal larger than the functional bracelet size, whereas the northern specimens are almost without exception smaller, the size exactly that of a bracelet. Interpretation is complicated by the inhumation burial from Wolny Dwór in East Pomerania where two rings type Şimleul Silvaniei were found in a position and arrangement which rules out their interpretation as ornaments worn on the wrist or the upper arm of the buried individual. This leads us to conclude that at least some rings of this type, the size of a bracelet or an armring, could have served a different role, for example that of pendants-amulets. The knee brooch, type Almgren 132, lacks good analogies but stylistic and morphological analysis would place this particular specimen in phase B2/C1, identifying it as evidence of the earliest phase of the Wielbark Culture settlement in the Liwiec Valley. In the assemblage of settlement pottery from Jarnice there are no fragments we could assign to this culture, but this agrees with a universally known pattern that Wielbark Culture settlement sites are poorly reflected in surface finds. The interpretation of the knee brooch from Jarnice proposed here finds indirect support from the recent discovery, very close to sites 22 and 23, of two buckles with a thickened prong, forms which definitely belong in phase C2–D and may be linked with Wielbark Culture settlement. Whether the Wielbark Culture settlement of the Late Roman Period was a direct continuation of the Przeworsk Culture settlement in the region or alternately, the Wielbark people moved into the area only after the earlier inhabitants had gone away, is a question that only a more comprehensive fieldwork could resolve. In the light of the close relationship between the people of these two cultures and the continuity of cemeteries, and even for a time, their joint use by the Przeworsk and the Wielbark people, often noted in the region to the east of the middle Vistula, the Liwiec drainage included, the first possibility appears quite likely.
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Cmentarzyska z okresu wpływów rzymskich z Parsk, powiat grudziądzki

63%
Kurzyńska M., Andrzejowski J.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2017
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vol. LXVIII
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issue 68
287-296
EN
Two urned burials were discovered in the village of Parski, its western or south-western area presumably (Fig. 1:9.10), in 1900 and 1913 (see: W. Łęga 1930). Archaeological recovered at that time (Fig. 2, 3) entered the Stadtmuseum (City Museum) in Graudenz/Grudziądz (until 1920 in Prussia); of these only a bronze brooch, type Almgren 95, survived (Fig. 2:c) and is now in Muzeum Archeologiczne w Gdańsku (Archaeological Museum in Gdańsk); two cinerary urns and a glass jetton have gone missing. Further discoveries were made at Parski in 1939. At this time, the now Polish Muzeum Miejskie (City Museum) in Grudziądz acquired seven pottery vessels, some sherds and a bronze buckle; of these the buckle, type D29, one of the vessels (a jug, group IX), and a brooch possibly recovered the same year – type Almgren 162 (Fig. 5:a–c), are still in keeping of Muzeum im. ks. dr. Władysława Łęgi w Grudziądzu (The Father Dr. Władysław Łęga Museum in Grudziądz). In 1955, on a hummock in the north-eastern area of the village mined for sand (Fig. 1:1), the first head of the Muzeum w Grudziądzu after the war, J. Błachnio, collected a few dozen fragments of pottery, a jug (group IX), a bowl (type XaA) and two clay spindlewhorls (Fig. 5:d–l), provenanced to a Wielbark Culture cemetery. Fieldwork carried out in 1968 in the vicinity of the now obliterated hummock brought in an assemblage of pottery finds, daub, charcoal and animal bones, interpreted as the remains of Lusatian Culture and Wielbark Culture settlements (see: R. Boguwolski 1969; 1972). The materials recovered at Parski may derive from two separate cemeteries, in use in the Late Roman Period, phases B2/C1–C2, possibly even as early as phase B2 of the Late Roman Period. In the immediate vicinity of these cemeteries were two (or three) other grave-fields, of Roman Period date – one (possibly two) at Parski, in fields belonging to Reinhold and Hippke (identified in 1900 and 1913), another possible burial ground, at Nowa Wieś site 4a (Fig. 1:8), in use during phases B2–C1b, possibly as late as phase C2 (M. Kurzyńska, in print). Finally, a surface survey carried out in 1982 (R. Boguwolski 1982) recorded a group of settlements of Roman Period date (Fig. 1).
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Grób z Łazówka koło Sokołowa Podlaskiego – ślad nieznanego cmentarzyska kultury wielbarskiej?

63%
Andrzejowski J., Cędrowski R.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2015
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vol. LXVI
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issue 66
338-348
EN
The cremation burial dated to the Roman Period was discovered in 2014, during agricultural drainage work, at the village of Łazówek, ca. 100 km NEE of Warsaw, in Sokołów Podlaski County. The find spot lies on the high, left-bank flood terrace of the Bug River ca. 2,5 km to the east of the valley of a minor stream, the Cetynia (Fig. 1). The upper level of the grave pit had been partly ploughed out, and was damaged to small extent by the mechanical digger; the surviving fragment was documented and excavated in full (Fig. 2). Underneath the topsoil, the pit was detected as a circular outline, ca. 95 cm in diameter, its section basin-like, with a depth of ca. 35 cm. Cutting fully into the culture deposit of a Przeworsk Culture settlement layer, the pit had a uniform, dark brown fill, without charcoal. Inside it was a cluster of pottery fragments, most of them not affected by fire with, next to them and below them, a small quantity (ca. 120 g) of cremated bones of a woman (?) age adultus (25–35 years old), resting in a compact concentration suggesting deposition inside an organic container. The grave goods consisted of (Fig. 3): 1. Fragments (approximately a half) of a large, wheel-made pottery bowl, weakly profiled, not affected by fire. Surface light brown, carefully smoothed. H. 9 cm, D. 18 cm. 2. Fragments (approximately ¼) of a large, wheel-made bowl, weakly profiled, not affected by fire. Surface light brown, carefully smoothed with on the shoulder, a burnished triple wavy line. H. 10 cm, D. ca. 21 cm. 3. Small wheel-made vessel (ca. ¾ complete), affected by fire, deformed. Surface originally smooth, brown (?) with on the shoulder, a row of delicately engraved chevrons. H. ca. 7,5 cm, D. 7 cm. 4. Hand-made vessel (ca. ¾ complete) affected by fire. Surface dark brown, smooth, irregular. H. 8 cm, D. ca. 10 cm. 5. Uncharacteristic fragment of coarse, hand-made pottery. Surface rough, brown in colour. 6. Copper alloy wire ring with extremities coiled into a flat spiral bezel and wrapped around the shoulders; affected by fire. D. ca. 30 mm. 7. Globular or round bead in pale green, transparent glass, melted down and deformed. 8. Two polyhedral beads in purple, translucent glass, burnt through. 9. Small fragment of an antler plate from the grip of a composite comb, deformed by fire. 10. Biconical clay spindle-whorl, not affected by fire. D. 30 mm. The grave inventory recovered at Łazówek may be safely dated to the Late Roman Period and attributed to the Wielbark Culture. At the same time, wheel-made vessels are quite rare in this culture, especially as compared to the pottery recorded in the territory of the Przeworsk and the Chernyakhiv cultures. Most of the wheel-made vessels found in Wielbark Culture sites date to phases C1b–D1, and are recognized as imports from the territory of the Chernyakhiv/Sântana de Mureş Culture, transferred via the Masłomęcz Group. Each of the wheel-made bowls from Łazówek finds good analogies in Chernyakhiv Culture pottery, this applies also to the wavy decoration on one of them. In contrast, the miniature vessel has no closer analogies. The engraved chevron decoration is typical for the hand-made pottery of the Wielbark Culture but is very rarely seen in wheel-made pottery, this is true also of the Chernyakhiv and the Przeworsk cultures. The deposit from Łazówek is unique because of the presence inside a single grave inventory of three wheel-made vessels, given that Wielbark Culture burials usually hold one, more rarely, two vessels. Two large cemeteries near Łazówek – at Jartypory and at Cecele – yielded only individual wheel-made vessels or sherds of such pottery (respectively, 11 out of ca. 450 and 6 out of ca. 580 graves). Their larger number is known from graves from cemeteries in the southeasternmost reaches of the Wielbark Culture, graves of the Masłomęcz Group, and in particular, graves of the Chernyakhiv/Sântana de Mureş Culture. Characteristic of the wheel-made vessels from Łazówek, and the chronology of the glass beads attributed to type TM128, and – to some extent – chronology of the metal rings type Beckmann 16, allow us to refine the dating of grave from Łazówek to phase C1b and the older stage of phase C2. The grave must belong to a larger cemetery, given that in the light of our present understanding of the burial customs of the Wielbark Culture people it is unlikely that this was an individual, isolated burial. This supposed cemetery would be associated with the settlement microregion in the valley of the Cetynia River, known only from surface fieldwork and random discoveries (Fig. 4). Nevertheless, some traces of Wielbark Culture occupation have been recorded in several sites in the region, of which a few (Ceranów, Sabnie and Zembrów, also coins from Sabnie and Hołowienki) may be dated reliably, or at least with some confidence, to phases B2/C1–C1 (cf. Fig. 5). In the immediate vicinity, just on the northern side of the valley or the Bug River, we have two larger and partly investigated sites of the Wielbark Culture: the cemetery at Nur, and the settlement at Kamianka Nadbużna.
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Terra sigillata z cmentarzyska kultury wielbarskiej w Jartyporach na zachodnim Podlasiu

63%
Andrzejowski J., Przychodni A.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2008
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vol. LX
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issue 60
161-178
EN
The cemetery at Jartypory, distr. Węgrów in eastern Poland1 (Fig. 1), is one of the largest known gravefields of the Wielbark culture in right-bank Mazowsze and in Podlasie. So far, the excavated area of ca 1550 m2 yielded almost 400 graves, both inhumation and cremation, dated to phases B2/C1–C2 of the Late Roman Period; stray finds indicate that the site continued in use until the early phase of the Migration Period2. A cremation pit grave 106 (Fig. 2, 3) contained ca 50 fragments of terra sigillata, dispersed within the pit fill. They were reassembled into a bowl – H. ca 10 cm, R. 18 cm and B. 7.5 cm (Fig. 4a.b). The same grave assemblage also featured fragments of melted pale yellow glass from an undetermined vessel, sherds of locally produced hand--built pottery vessels (Fig. 5c–f), fragments of a tri-layer antler comb (Fig. 5a), and a bronze belt buckle (Fig. 5b). A small quantity of heavily burnt and very poorly preserved bones belonged to a male (?), 30–50 years old (adultus−maturus)5. Dating the assemblage is quite difficult. The only diagnostic element is a large and solid elbow handle (surviving length ca 11 cm!), presumably from a type IXA jug (Fig. 5d), datable to phase C1b–C28–16. Grave 106 partly intruded on the pits of graves 122 and 126 (Fig. 2, 3a,). Of these, grave 126 cannot be dated more closely and grave 122 is placed in phases C1b–C217. In any case, the top layer of grave 122 yielded two fragments of a terra sigillata vessel and further isolated fragments occurred in graves 102B and 107, with some stray pieces discovered in the direct neighbourhood of grave 106 (Fig. 6). It is interesting that a terra sigillata rim sherd, perhaps from the same vessel, was discovered at the bottom of the humus layer ca 22 m (!) to the west of grave 106. Since all these fragments may be refitted with the vessel from grave 106, presumably they must have become relocated from the upper layer of that grave. Grave 102B may be dated only broadly to the Late Roman Period, it is possible to define the chronology of grave 10719 reliably as phase C1b, which, at the same time, is the terminus ante quem of the burial in grave 106. All of which ultimately places grave 106 in phase C1b. The reconstruction of the terra sigillata vessel as a Drag. 37 bowl22 is beyond question. Bowls of this type prevail among finds of terra sigillata from the area of Middle European Barbaricum, in Poland they make up almost 95% of vessels determined morphologically. What is exceptional is ornamentation of the bowl from Jartypory. It includes (cf fig. 4a): 1. The raised potter’s stamp, (STA)TVT(VSF) (?), similar to the one published by W. Ludowici26 (cf fig. 7a); 2. Ovolo, Ricken-Fischer25 E28 (cf fig. 7b); 3. Bull turned right, Ricken-Fischer T119a (cf fig. 7c); 4. Deer turned left, Ricken-Fischer T82a (cf fig. 7d); 5. Lioness turned right, Ricken-Fischer T35a (cf fig. 7e); 6. Archer, Ricken-Fischer M174g (cf fig. 7f); 7. Unidentified animal turned left. Both the stamp and the surviving set of ornaments help in tracing the vessel from Jartypory to the wares of STATUTUS I from Rheinzabern, classified to group IIIb acc. to H. Bernhard27. The time of production of the bowl can be determined broadly as the second terce of the 3rd c. (AD 233–260/275). Most of the fragments of the terra sigillata bowl from Jartypory are burnt, but a few show no trace of fire or only light discolorations of its dark red slip. Combined all the bowl fragments from grave 106 comprise only 20–30% of the vessel, which must follow from the failure to recover all of the mortuary furnishings from the remains of the burnt pyre. At the same time it is hard to say whether the fact of the deposition in the grave of fragments of an incomplete vessel results from the application of the principle of pars pro toto or from other elements of the funerary ritual unclear to us at present. Finds of samian wares in the Wielbark Culture territory are exceedingly rare (Fig. 8): so far from 20 sites (including Jartypory) we have just 22–24 vessels. For comparison, the area of Przeworsk Culture has yielded not less than 395 terra sigillata vessels so far. To the list of samian wares from Wielbark Culture4 may be added also a new find from Czarnówko, distr. Lębork, grave 37345, a fragment from Warzawa-Dotrzyma46, and perhaps, also a fragment from Lubartów, distr. loco, both fragments attributed previously to Przeworsk Culture48. In the case of fragments of samian wares from Opoka, distr. Puławy50, and from Gościeradów, distr. Kraśnik51, it is possible equally well to link them with Przeworsk Culture as with Wielbark Culture. At the same time, it is necessary to remove from the list of Wielbark Culture finds the fragment from Masłomęcz, distr. Hrubieszów, grave 41754, which in reality is a sherd of a hand-built vessel of local make, and an unreliably dated and attributed fragment of terra sigillata from a southern Gaulish workshop discovered at Kopyłów, distr. Hrubieszów53. The Drag. 37 bowl from Jartypory, produced AD 233–260/275, is the latest terra sigillata find from the area of Wielbark Culture, younger than samian wares from Pfaffenhofen dated to the first and the beginning of the second terce of the 3rd c. known from a grave from Janowo30, and from a destroyed grave from Pomielin, distr. Iława31. At the same time, all the three sigillata finds come from assemblages dated reliably to phase C1b. The vessel from Jartypory is also one of very few pieces of evidence on the coming to the territory of Poland of terra sigillata from Rheinzabern produced after AD 230, noted, until recently, only on territory of Przeworsk Culture.68–70 The structure of terra sigillata finds from the area of Wielbark Culture does not show any regularity when it comes to the participation of individual workshops and gives an impression that the collection is quite random; at the same time, selection of vessels suggests that emphasis was placed on pieces of better quality. In most cases samian wares in Wielbark deposits are intact vessels from the furnishings of rich inhumations (region of Gdańsk88 [?], Gronowo, distr. Drawsko Pom., grave 1/2657, Odry, distr. Chojnice, grave 42357, Pomielin31, Weklice, distr. Elbląg, grave 20862, Malbork-Wielbark, distr. loco93) or – which is quite interesting – urns in cremation graves (Domkowo, distr. Ostróda95, Leśno, distr. Chojnice, site 196, Sadłowo, distr. Rypin33). In six cases (Ciemniewko, distr. Ciechanów58–60, Czarnówko45, Janowo30, Jartypory, Kleszewo, distr. Pułtusk, grave 150103, Warszawa-Dotrzyma46) occurred in cremation graves as burnt fragments; the remaining terra sigillata finds are from earlier discoveries, badly documented or not at all (Dębice, town of Elbląg65, Iława, distr. loco39), or from destroyed features (Gostkowo-Folsąg, distr. Toruń105, Sopot, distr. loco106). Urns from Leśno and Sadłowo are vessels from the workshop COMITIALIS SECUNDIN.AVI from Rheinzabern. A single vessel from this workshop is known from the area of Przeworsk Culture (Opatów, distr. Kłobuck98); similarly as only a single find of a late Severan complete Rheinzabern vessel (Lisów, distr. Opatów99). A context of discovery of sigillata definitely similar to the one at Jartypory was noted at Janowo and Kleszewo, and perhaps also at Ciemniewko; the grave from Czarnówko was decidedly much richer, with a bronze vessel, gold ornaments and glass gaming counters. The number of terra sigillata vessels in Wielbark Culture and the character of these finds suggests a greater importance of this category of imports as a mark of status than in case of Przeworsk Culture, perhaps due also to the smaller availability of samian wares in the Wielbark environment. At the same time, all our conclusions in this regard are seriously limited by the fact that in case of Wielbark Culture die wiederentdeckte Kultur is represented almost exclusively by cemeteries and stray finds. Nevertheless the differences in the number, dating of the influx, centres of production of terra sigillata vessel finds from the area of Wielbark and Przeworsk Culture are quite significant and – apparently – not random, even if compare only the material from graves and cemeteries.
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Cmentarzysko kultury przeworskiej z Grzebska na północnym Mazowszu

63%
Andrzejowski J., Rakowski T.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2019
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vol. LXX
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issue 70
211-218
EN
In June 1927, two artefacts – an iron shield boss and a fragment of a small clay bowl – were donated to the National Museum in Warsaw; both were found under unknown circumstances at Grzebsk, Mława County. The shield boss can now be found in the collection of the Polish Army Museum, where it was moved as a deposit of the National Museum before 1939, while the bowl appeared – quite unexpectedly – in the pottery storage of the Iron Age Department of the State Archaeological Museum (PMA) in Warsaw, where it was ‘discovered’ in 1988. It is not quite clear how it found its way to the PMA; what is known is that this must have happened no later than in 1980. According to notes on the catalogue cards of both artefacts, drawn up still in the National Museum, they were found in a grave “covered with a flat stone, with smaller stones around it”, together with “a clay idol, which crumbled after unearthing, an iron sword, and a couple of spurs”. The grave marks an otherwise unknown cemetery of the Przeworsk Culture. We do not have any details about its location other than it was (is?) probably situated on the grounds of the former estate in the village of Grzebsk. The catalogue cards and inventory book of the National Museum list the artefacts as donated by Damian Gniazdowski, however, a different name – Wacław Gniazdowski – can be found in the delivery book of the Museum. The latter is true, as we know that Damian took possession of the Grzebsk estate no earlier than in 1889 and no later than in 1892, then sold the manor farm in 1902 or 1903, and moved with his family to Łępice, Pułtusk County, where he died in January 1922. The grave would have been discovered between 1889/1892 and 1902/1903, thus Damian’s son Wacław, born in 1894, must have recounted the description of the grave that he heard from his father. The small bowl from Grzebsk (Fig. 1) is typical of Przeworsk Culture pottery from the Early Roman Period and corresponds to type VI/1 in the classic typology by Teresa Liana; its unpreserved base could have been convex or concave, possibly – although this would have been completely unique – flat. Similar bowls are common at cemeteries in northern and eastern Mazovia, for example, Niedanowo 2, Nidzica County, Modła 2, Mława County, or Kamieńczyk 2, Wyszków County. Their chronology at the three cemeteries falls within the horizon of phase B1 and the older stage of phase B2. The characteristic star-like ornament on the body connects the bowl from Grzebsk with a group of vessels considered – with reservations – as more or less distant imitations of ribbed Roman glass bowls. Our specimen can be regarded – after Morten Hegewisch – as a “creative plagiarism”. The shield boss (Fig. 2:a.b) belongs to conical forms corresponding to interregional types Bohnsack 8, Jahn 5, and Zieling I1a, typical of the end of the Late Pre-Roman Period and the beginning of the Roman Period. Its surface, especially on the flange, is heavily corroded. Nevertheless, there are visible remains of so-called fire patina, attesting that the object was at some point on a funeral pyre. Only one rivet with a slightly convex, circular head has been preserved, however, rivet holes indicate that the boss was originally attached to a shield with twelve regularly spaced rivets (Fig. 2:c). Such a large number of rivets indicates that the boss should be counted among the older conical forms of Late Pre-Roman shield bosses of the Przeworsk Culture corresponding to type Bochnak 15 and dated to phases A3 and A3/B1, i.e. the end of the 1st century BC and very beginning of the 1st century AD. This fits with dating of other north-Mazovian graves with shield bosses type Bochnak 15, e.g. from Lemany, Pułtusk County, Legionowo, Legionowo County, and possibly also from Niedanowo 1, Nidzica County and Łysa Góra at Gródki, Działdowo County. The small iron nail stuck in the head of the preserved rivet is an interesting element (Fig. 3). Similar to the rest of the artefact, it is covered with fire patina, which indicates its original, ancient provenance. It may indicate an unusual manner of repairing the shield, probably following damage it sustained in a fight. Such a solution, consisting of hammering in another rivet, or a nail as it may be, instead of replacing the damaged rivet, may indicated the ad hoc nature of the repair or lack of access to a specialised workshop. The location of the cemetery remains unknown. It was certainly situated within Damian Gniazdowski’s estate. It is probably what a primary school teacher from Grzebsk referred to in 1926 as a “pagan cemetery” on the grounds of the manor farm, already in the possession of the Rudowski family, where “pots with ashes” were being unearthed. It may be the site registered during field walking in 1998 within the limits of a large gravel pit in the northern part of the village of Grzebsk (Fig. 4, 5). Potsherds and damaged graves in the walls of the gravel pit were discovered there – the site was identified as a Przeworsk Culture cemetery from the “Roman Period”. During verification of the site in 2018, traces of graves in the gravel pit could no longer be observed, however, fragments of characteristic sepulchral pottery of the Przeworsk Culture from the Early Roman Period were found in the gravel pit itself and its immediate vicinity. More information about this site can only be obtained through archaeological excavations. However, we will probably never know whether the cemetery that yielded the artefacts described here and the cemetery discovered in 1998 are one and the same.
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Grób z ostrogami z nekropoli kultury wielbarskiej w Jartyporach nad Liwcem

51%
Andrzejowski J., Rakowski T., Watemborska K.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2011
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vol. LXII
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issue 62
49-63
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Modła, grób 169 - pierwsza trepanacja czaszki z okresu wpływów rzymskich z ziem polskich

51%
Andrzejowski J., Stanaszek Ł. M., Mańkowska-Pliszka H.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2006
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vol. LVIII
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issue 58
185-200
EN
The cemetery from the Roman Period at Modła, comm. Wiśniewo, distr. Mława, was excavated in total in the years 1976–1986. More than 300 ancient features were discovered, which were almost exclusively graves from the end of the old and the first ages of the new era: over 190 graves from the Przeworsk Culture (from the final stage of phase A3 to the late stage of phase B2), around 60 graves from the Wielbark Culture (from phase B2/C1 to the early phase of the Migration Period), and around 45 further graves of undetermined cultural origin, surely, or most probably from the Roman Period. The majority of the graves from Modła contained cremation burials. Relatively few of them were inhumation graves – there were only 23 such graves discovered. During the anthropological studies of the bone remains from one of the inhumation graves (no. 169) it was noted that the buried individual had been subjected to an intravital skull trepanation. This discovery deserves special attention as it is probably the first recorded case of such an operation from the Roman Period at the territory of Poland. Grave 169 was situated at the south-astern border of the cemetery, at a distinct slope of a hill at which the cemetery was located – about 5 meters below the top of the hill. The bones of the skeleton, oriented along the N-S axis, with the head to the north, were uncovered just under the surface, at the border of a large modern ditch. The description in the field log allows for a supposition that the burial was discovered in its original alignment. It is unknown, however, whether the unnatural arrangement of the skeleton was original or secondary (Fig. 1). The absence of any preserved furniture does not allow for precise dating of the burial, however, there is some indirect evidence indicating its cultural attributes. The orientation of the pit of grave 169 and the arrangement of the individual with the head to the north are typical of inhumation rituals of the Wielbark Culture. Among 23 inhumation graves from Modła, 18 most certainly or probably should be connected with the Wielbark Culture on the basis of the furniture, and only one should be connected with the Przeworsk Culture. Almost all pits of the inhumation graves were aligned N-S or NNW-SSE, and more seldom NW-SE or NE-SW. The only exception is the Early Roman Period grave from the Przeworsk Culture, with the pit oriented along the NWW-SEE axis and the skeleton oriented with the head to the west. At the north-western Mazowsze, in the zone occupied by the Wielbark Culture from the beginning of phase B2/C1, a series of about 20 inhumation graves from the Wielbark Culture at Modła is quite exceptional. Five inhumation graves are known from the cemetery at Litwinki, distr. Nidzica, at which no fewer than 50 graves were discovered, while at other cemeteries, only single such graves are recorded. This also concerns the big cemetery at Niedanowo, distr. Nidzica, site 2, where there was only one inhumation grave among over 200 hundred burials from the Wielbark Culture. In the case of the Przeworsk Culture at the entire territory of Mazowsze on the right side of the Vistula, inhumation graves are very rare (fewer than 15 graves in total). However, almost all of the them come from the northern limits of the Przeworsk settlement zone (Szczepkowo-Zalesie, Bartki, and Niedanowo, distr. Nidzica, Modła, distr. Mława, Zgliczyn-Pobodzy, distr. Żuromin). The grave pits are variously aligned, although the orientation W-E and similar ones dominate, and the bodies of the dead were often laid on the side, and (or) with the legs pulled up. This absence of clear rules concerning the orientation of the grave and the arrangement of the body is characteristic of the inhumation ritual also at other areas of the Przeworsk Culture. The evidence presented above allows us to connect grave 169 with the Wielbark Culture and to date it generally to the Late Roman Period. The bones from grave 169 belonged to one individual. The gender features were not clear. However, the relatively big size and massiveness of individual bones (eg ribs, vertebrae, mastoid processes), the angle value between the neck and the shaft of proximal femur (ca 125°), and also the shape of the upper rim of the orbit and occipital, point to a male. The determination of the age of the dead was not easy because of the discrepancy between the ectocranial suture closure and dental age. All preserved fragments of the cranial sutures were exo- and endocranially opened on both sides. On the other hand, the degree of attrition of the surfaces of the masticatory system was quite considerable. It may be assumed that the skeleton under study belonged to a male individual who died at the age of early adultus (ca 20–25 years). He was around 165.5 cm tall. At two parietal bones, in the area beginning in the middle of the sagittal suture (pars lambdoidea, and pars obelica) and ending at the joint with the occipital bone (the area of lambda point), there is an oval hole (Fig. 2). The size of the cavity in the sagittal plane measured ca 59 mm, while in the frontal plane it was 39.5 mm. At the same time, the edges of this cavity were damaged post mortem in the area of lambda point and it was on the opposite site of the cavity. The actual post-trepanation hole was slightly smaller (48.5×39.5 mm). The characteristics of this cavity allows us to view it beyond any doubt as a hole resulting from craniotomy (status post trepanationem). The operation was carried out in vivo, which is supported by the fact that the edges of the cavity had healed intravitally (cf Figs. 2 and 3). An analysis of the bone margin at the outline of the hole (11.9 mm) points to a relatively long intravital period, which indirectly suggests that the trepanation could have taken place at a young age. The post-trepanation hole was made by using the method of scraping which was the most common method in all ancient periods. This is why the cavity had a regular oval shape, with the wall gently inclined inside, which is described in the literature as completed trepanation (involving the perforation of lamina interna). The location of the cavity is worth noting. It is in the parietal bones, close to the sagittal suture and the lambda point, as the middle zone of the head is connected with greater risk in such operations. This is due to the fact that right under the lid of the skull there is the Sinus sagittalis, whose disruption can result in instant death either due to vein damage or due to infection. The described surgical intervention belonged to the so called healing trepanations. However, a ritual (magical) character of this operation cannot be excluded. Everything points to the fact that the reasons for the craniotomy in the case of the individual in Modła were connected with the morphological features of his skull. The skull was characterized by an asymmetry (particular visible in the area of frontal, occipital and both temporal bones), the occipital scale was indented and had an irregular line of the nuchal crest and of the protuberantia occipitalis externa. This may testify to a pathological state of traumatic origin (injury of the occipital skull part). The bone density, visible in the X-ray picture agrees with age group of the individual obtained by anthropological methods. No signs of developmental disorders were observed in the bone structure (Fig. 3). Also the histological picture of bone trabecular tissue is symmetrical and regular, and no pathological changes are observed (Fig. 6). As far as the medical consequences of damaging the occipital lobe go (Brodman’s area 17 – V1 and V3), it can be assumed that the young man, following the craniotomy, could suffer from vision disorder. Only few cases of craniotomy are known from the area of Central Europe from the period between the late Neolithic and the early Middle Ages, which can be due to the insufficient state of research, small popularity of this operation type, but also the domination of cremation rite. Relatively numerous healing trepanations are recorded in Celtic materials from the present day area of Southern Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. The only case of skull trepanation in vivo known from the territory of Poland and chronologically close to the find from Modła was recorded recently in grave 68 at an Oksywie Culture cemetery at Różyny, distr. Pruszcz Gdański (pow. gdański) – a burial of a male individual, age: senilis, and dated to phase A2 of the Late Pre-Roman Period. Three cases of craniotomy contemporaneous with the burial at Modła (coming from phases B2/C1–C2) were recorded at a big necropolis in Marvelė, ray. Kaunas in Lithuania. Apparently also from the Late Roman Period came the burial from the town of Nitranský Hrádok, distr. Nové Zámky, in Slovakia, while the grave from Merseburg-Süd, distr. Merseburg-Querfurt, in Sachsen-Anhalt is dated to the second half of the 4th cent. and the beginning of the 5th cent. AD. This chronological sequence, the territorial dispersion of graves with burials containing individuals with trepanation and the established fact that the operated individuals survived the trepanation indicates to us that the exceptionality of these cases is only apparent, and the surgical procedures connected with this type of operation had to be well known to the ‘barbarian’ medics of the time. This view is corroborated indirectly also by the surgical sets with instruments used for trepanation, which come from the Central and Southern European zone of Celtic settlement. A similar set (but without bone saws) is known from a warrior grave from a cemetery of the Przeworsk Culture at Żukowice, distr. Głogów, in Lower Silesia, dated to phase A1. Recently, Anette Frölich identified small trepanation saws, identical to the Celtic ones, in three coherent sets of personal grave furniture from the known bog deposit from Illerup in northern Jutland, to which also belonged scalpels and wooden needles for ‘rough sewing’ of cut wounds. It would therefore seem that we are dealing with some sort of first aid sets, most handy at battle fields and used by the ‘military’ medics of the time. Ernst Künzl describes the Celts buried with weapons and sets of medical instruments as warrior-surgeons – most surely the warrior from Żukowice was a ‘surgeon’ of this type. Head wounds, expected in battle conditions and the necessity of quick surgical interventions support the earlier expressed opinion, according to which craniotomy at the time of late antiquity at the territory of Central and Northern Europe were mostly healing in character. The sets from Illerup force us to assume that not only the necessity of such operations was taken into account, but also the necessary instruments and skills for their effective use in battle conditions.
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Nieznane cmentarzyska z okresu wpływów rzymskich w Żmijewie Kościelnym i Żmijewie Gajach, w pow. mławskim

51%
Andrzejowski J., Stanaszek Ł. M., Grzymkowski A.
Wiadomości Archeologiczne
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2006
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vol. LVIII
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issue 58
401-407
EN
In 2005 the regional museum in Mława (Muzeum Ziemi Zawkrzeńskiej) entered into its collections pieces from a cremation grave which had been discovered by accident at Żmijewo Kościelne, comm. Stupsk, distr. Mława. According to their finder, the clay vessel holding burnt bones lay at the foot of the side of a small gravel pit, in an area where it extended down to 2–3 m. The location corresponds to an archaeological site recorded during the 1983 fieldwalking survey as a settlement of Przeworsk Culture from the Roman Period, registered as Żmijewo Kościelne, site 1 (Fig. 1). Objects found mixed with cremated bones inside the bowl included a brooch of copper alloy and two uncharacteristic fragments from a three-layer bone and antler comb (Fig. 2:1–3). The funerary vessel – a bowl –may be classified either as type VIC, or 3rd variant of type XaA of Wielbark Culture pottery, acc. to Ryszard Wołągiewicz (1993, p. 14–15, 17, cf pl. 19, 27:5–7, 73). Both forms were as long-lived (phases B2/C1–D) as they were widespread across Wielbark Culture territory (op. cit., p. 26, 30, 102 list 6C, p. 110 list 10aA, maps 6, 11). The brooch corresponds in general to type 170 acc. to Oscar Almgren (1923, pl. VII:170). In Poland brooches similar to the specimen from Żmijewo are chronologically confined to phases C1b–C2 (K. Godłowski 1974, p. 39; 1985, p. 89; 1994, p. 487; R. Wołągiewicz 1993, fig. 1; A. Bursche, J. Okulicz-Kozaryn 1999, p. 143–144), although admittedly, some variants are given an even later attribution (type FG98; cf A. Kokowski 1995, p. 49; 1997, p. 723, 823 list 14a). In the brooch from Żmijewo the terminal of the foot is ornamented by two cross-wise incisions. A similar design is noted on some of the early variants of Almgren 161 brooches, eg specimens with arched bow and knobbed head, or type FM25, with incised/notched top of the bow, which are thought to be restricted chronologically on the whole to phase C1a. Ultimately the grave from Żmijewo may be dated to phase C1b. Definitely, it may linked with an as yet unidentified cemetery of Wielbark Culture. The funerary deposit from Żmijewo consisted of only a small amount of cremated human bones (209.3 g) of relatively poor diagnostic value. They all belonged to a single individual of unknown sex whose age was identified tentatively as maturus. It would appear from traces of fire which have been observed on the bowl that the vessel with the cremated bone remains was placed in a grave pit which was filled with smouldering remains of the funerary pyre. A small number of similar cases is known from other cemeteries of Wielbark Culture from the Late Roman Period in Mazowsze and Podlasie (Nadkole 1, distr. Węgrów, graves 23 and 25 – J. Andrzejowski, A. Żórawska 2002, p. 35, 36, 53; Cecele, distr. Siemiatycze, grave 378 – J. Jaskanis 1996, p. 52; Kłoczew, distr. Ryki, grave 68 – B. Balke 1971, p. 337). However, caution is needed in analysing similar cases as it is relatively easy to mistake for a cinerary urn a vessel which although admittedly it contained cremated bones but actually was an element of the grave goods which, placed in the grave pit prior to deposition of pyre remains, came to be filled with cremated bones by accident. The sandy workings of the gravel mine produced a dozen odd pottery fragments – prehistoric to medieval or possibly, early modern. Two were characteristic enough for attribution to Przeworsk Culture from the Early Roman Period (Fig. 3:1.2). A further site was recorded in 2006 at Żmijewo-Gaje, some 3 km SE of the gravefield at Żmijewo Kościelne, site 1 (Fig. 1). The area produced two stray finds of copper alloy brooches: Almgren 97 (Fig. 4:1) and Almgren 128 (Fig. 4:2). Both specimens are dated reliably to phase B2/C1 and linked with Wielbark Culture. Of special interest is the Almgren 97 brooch (cf O. Almgren 1923, p. 51, pl. V:97; Th. Hauptmann 1998, p. 164–165, fig. 9; T. Skorupka 2001, pl. 44/155:4, 149/481:2), a representative of a rare variant of brooches with three crests (Dreisprossenfibeln). The specimen from Żmijewo has morphological traits distinctive for type 97 brooches (crests on the head and bow, a crestless foot flared at the terminal), but stylistically it is evidently close to late forms of crest-headed brooches, Almgren V series 8, and late spring-cover brooches, eastern series, in particular, variants X2 of Almgren 41 brooches. Their area of discovery, state of preservation and dating indicates that the two brooches originate from a previously unrecorded cemetery of Wielbark Culture (Żmijewo-Gaje, site 2). May it be added that surface survey of 1983 identified in the immediate neighbourhood of this site, west of the road running to the village Żmijewo-Szawły, a site defined by ceramic finds as early medieval (Żmijewo-Gaje, site 1). The gravefields from Żmijewo Kościelne and Żmijewo-Gaje belong to a local ‘Mława’ cluster’ of settlement which continued with varying intensity starting from phase A1 of the Late PreRoman Period as far as the early phase of the Migrations Period. At a small distance from Żmijewo lie cemeteries at Trzpioły (T. Dowgird 1889, p. 23–25, 32, pl. IIIA), Stupsk (E. Reinbacher 1964; A. Niewęgłowski, J. Okulicz 1965; A. Grzymkowski 1996, p. 167–179), Dąbek (A. Grzymkowski 1996, p. 182–185; A. Mistewicz 2005), Modła (A. Grzymkowski 1986; 1996, p. 154–167; J. Andrzejowski, in print). A further number of corresponding sites, less well investigated include Garlino-Zalesie (J. Okulicz 1965a; A. Kietlińska 1972; PMA, IV/500), Budy Garlińskie (A. Grzymkowski 1987), Kitki (J. Antoniewicz, M. Gozdowski, 1951, p. 54–55; J. Okulicz 1965a; 1965b; 1970, p. 427 note 24, pl. I:2; M. Wyczółkowski 1990), Konopki (A. Grzymkowski 1983, p. 11; MZZ), Purzyce-Trojany (unpubl., Muzeum Szlachty Mazowieckiej in Ciechanów), Stare Kosiny (J. Okulicz 1965a; A. Niewęgłowski 1972, p. 242; A. Grzymkowski 1996, p. 198), Stara Sławogóra (T. Dowgird 1889, p. 25–30, 32, pl. IV) and Mława (S. Krukowski 1920, p. 89; J. Okulicz 1965; A. Grzymkowski 1983, p. 12). Pottery finds dated generally to the Roman Period are known from a further dozen-odd sites discovered during fieldwalking surveys. Almost all of the better investigated cemeteries of the ‘Mława’ settlement cluster produced material of Przeworsk and Wielbark Cultures (Modła, Dąbek stan. 5, Kitki, Stupsk), in which they resemble the situation at numerous gravefields dating from the Roman Period to the east of the Vistula in Mazowsze and Podlasie (cf J. Andrzejowski 1989; 2001, p. 108–109, fig. 9; 2005b, p. 117).
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