Stone hoe

In the last three decades of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century the collection of the Society for Pomeranian History and Antiquities (Gesellschaft für Pommersche Geschichte und Altertumskunde) in Szczecin regularly included numerous archaeological finds from the area of Żelisławiec (German: Sinzlow), Gryfino Dobropol (German: Dobberphul) and neighbouring towns. The large influx of objects from such a small area, representing various prehistoric periods, was due to one person, Wilhelm Richter (1830-1915), a teacher from Żelisławiec. The respected member of the Society, of which he was a member for many years, systematically collected information about discoveries and conducted searches for archaeological monuments in his region. Sometimes he also participated in the recovery of finds, such as in 1878, when he was notified of the discovery of a treasure trove of items from the Old Bronze Age in Babin, which accidental finders had partially dismembered and tried to sell in nearby Pyrzyce. Among the artefacts he handed over were many Neolithic stone products. These included four tools from the Dobropole and Żelisławiec border area, which W. Richter brought with him during the 17th Anthropological Congress held in 1886 in Szczecin. Only three of them have survived to the present day: an axe, a hoe and a fragment of an axe. Probably they were not discovered together. Two are marked as coming from Dobropol. The third one - the presented miniature hoe - has an inscription identifying it as a discovery from Żelisławiec. Such tools are referred to as shoemaker's hoes because of the association of their shape with the rule used by shoemakers to shape shoes. They are characteristic products of the oldest agricultural communities in Central Europe, belonging to the Danube region of civilisation, from the characteristic decoration of clay vessels called the Corded Ware cultures.

Krzysztof Kowalski