A binocular buckle

The binocular brooch is an original, perfectly preserved ornament of a costume, with the shape resembling glasses. Presumably, it was used to fasten outer garments. It is made of quadrangular wire, from which spiral discs with decorative buttons were formed in the middle. An impressive figure-eight scroll was placed between the discs. Judging by the very early number of the signature of the Society of History and Antiquities of Pomerania (Towarzystwo Historii i Starożytności Pomorza) in Szczecin, which is on the relic, the brooch could have been found at the latest in the 1820s. As for the circumstances of its discovery, it is known that it was excavated from peat, where it was deposited at a depth of about 6 m. Such a context of discovery may indicate a votive character of the find. Until August 1944 it was stored in the collection of the Pommersches Landesmuseum in Stettin (Polish: Pomorskie Muzeum Krajowe w Szczecinie; English: Pomeranian State Museum in Szczecin). At the end of the Second World War, it was transported deep into Germany together with other valuable relics. It only returned to Szczecin in 2009 as part of the Polish-German exchange of old archaeological collections. The presented brooch, dated to the Early Iron Age, i.e., the Hallstatt period C (approx. 750-600/550 BC), belongs to a group of finds rarely encountered in Poland. The dozen or so specimens discovered so far are concentrated in three regions - in central-eastern Pomerania, Greater Poland, and Lesser Poland. Two significant groupings of similar fibulas also occur in the remote Bavarian-Czech and Romanian-Northern Balkan areas.

Dorota Kozłowska