Copy of type I crown necklace (Kostrzewski)

This brass copy of a bronze neck-ring was made in the 1930s. Due to the deep indentations on the outer side, these types of neck-rings are classified as “crown-shaped”. It is an internally differentiated group of jewellery objects dating from the 4th to the 1st centuries B.C., characteristic of the Jastorf culture. They have emerged first on the Jultan Peninsula and in northern Germany. In Pomerania, only a few, local types of the crown-shaped neck-rings were found. The area where these objects were found, from the Jutland Peninsula, through Poland and Ukraine to the Balkans, coincides with the migration routes of the Germanic Skir and Bastar tribes. This is why some researchers support the theory that the Jastorf culture can be identified with the Proto-Germanic people. The Pomeranian crown-shaped neck-ring was accidentally found in 1932, in a bog near Kruszyna town, in Słupsk poviat. There is no further information about the context of this discovery. Other specimens of bronze jewellery from the same period, especially neck-rings and fibulae, were often found in bogs or peatlands, so it is possible they were related to the so-called bog offerings, some form of cult. The discovery of the bronze neck-ring in Kruszyna was reported to Szczecin museum by Walter Witt from Słupsk, who was a local amateur archaeologist and regionalist. He spotted it in a private collection of Mr Küttner’s, and the presented brass copy was made for the museum in Szczecin. In the archives of the Department of Archaeology of the National Museum in Szczecin there is preserved photographic documentation of the original neck-ring. The photos show that in the original version, the indentations were not that regular as on the copy.

Bartłomiej Rogalski