Pendant

An ornamental belt buckle in the form of a W-shaped bow was discovered during the research of a burial cemetery from the younger pre-Roman and Roman period (2nd century BC - 3rd century AD) in Masów (the Rycki poviat, the Lublin Voivodeship), carried out in 1953 by Jan Gurba from the Archaeology Department of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin.

The belt buckle, made of bronze, is decorated with bands of punctures and two horizontal lines at the point of separation of the arms, which was shaped into a trapezoidal plate.

The fitting belonged to the belt suit of a representative of the Przeworsk culture, identified with the Vandals, namely one of the tribes belonging to the circle of Germanic cultures, inhabiting the areas of Central European Barbaricum in the last centuries BC and the first centuries AD.

The Vandal warrior wore a belt with a buckle, which ended in a decorative metal fitting, often with additional decorative metal elements, such as pendants or buckles, on which tools useful in everyday life, such as flints or knives, were attached.

The bronze ornamented buckle from Masowo was not only a functional accessory of a leather belt, but also an attractive decoration of a warrior's clothing of high social status.