Vase-like vessel

The undecorated vase, probably with four lugs, filled mainly with dyed plaster, was reconstructed from a large fragment of an earthenware vessel discovered in a Neolithic box grave during excavations carried out in 1934 as part of a programme to document the Pomeranian megaliths. The project was carried out between 1930 and 1936 by Ernst Sprockhoff, the then director of the Museum of Mainz. The rectangular tomb, located on the border between the villages of Wrząca and Zagórki in the Słupsk district, was built of stone blocks. Its partially destroyed structure, 4.4 × 2.1 m, was reconstructed after excavations. In 1963, an archaeological expedition from the Poznań University researched in the vicinity of the megalith, discovering boulder arrangements suggesting the existence of other destroyed structures here. Megalithic tombs were built in Pomerania mainly in the 4th millennium BC. In a degenerated form - box graves buried in the ground or covered with an embankment - the idea of building sepulchral objects from boulders survived longer. The construction from Wrząca belongs to such late objects. The remains of a cremation burial, vessels and numerous fragments of several other burials were Inside the box. Near the traces of cremated bones, a decorated bowl characteristic of the Globular Amphora culture was found in the southern part. On the southwest side of the box, a small, undecorated two-piece vessel was found. Its form suggests a connection with the Corded Ware culture. Therefore, the tomb was founded by the Globular Amphora community between the end of the 4th and the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, and later also used by people of the Corded Ware culture at the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

Krzysztof Kowalski