Decorated goblet

A reconstructed earthenware vessel - a goblet ornamented with cord impressions, found in the village of Mierzyn (German: Möhringen) near Szczecin, came to the collection of the Pomeranian State Museum (Pommersches Landesmuseum) at the end of 1938 or in 1939. The area around Mierzyn, situated on the northern slopes of the Stobnanska Embankment, part of the Szczecin Heights, was intensively developed in the Younger Stone Age. Numerous remains of settlements, flint tool workshops, graves, and individual stone products were discovered there, added to the Szczecin and Berlin museums' collections, and stored in the local primary school. Many of the finds come from 1932-1941 and are the result of the activity of Reinhold Richter, a Pałuki-born teacher of history and geography, deputy headmaster of one of the secondary schools in Szczecin, connected with Szczecin's education since the end of the 19th century. In his retirement age, he settled in neighbouring Gumienice and was appointed by the conservator of archaeological monuments in the Pomeranian province to act as custodian of archaeological monuments in the then district of Randow (German: Kreis Randow). R. Richter succeeded, among other things, in rescuing the monuments from an extensive elevation descending to a glacial pond and marshes located at the northern border of Mierzyn. Having obtained information that in 1936 earthworks had been started there, in the following years, he searched with the help of Martin Wasse, the son of the surrounding landowner, who also had finds excavated in 1936, including a goblet with string ornamentation. Such vessels are a common feature in the furnishings of Late Neolithic graves of communities of the Corded Ware culture. However, in the case of the goblet from Mierzyn, no data allow identifying it unequivocally as a tomb gift.

Krzysztof Kowalski