Amphora

An earthenware vessel from the Younger Stone Age from the village of Gozd (German: Gust) found its way to the collection of antiquities collected in Szczecin by the Society for History and Antiquities of Pomerania (Gesellschaft für Pommersche Geschichte und Altertumskunde) in 1892. It was as a result of active fieldwork of the then collection supervisor Adolf Gustav Stubenrauch (1851-1922), to whom the find was handed over by a local innkeeper D. Klotz. According to the note of A. Stubenrauch from 26 June 1892 an undecorated five-eared amphora with a broken neck was discovered accidentally many years ago during peat and marl quarrying on the land situated directly north-west of the village buildings, which at that time belonged to the local parish. It was found in peat, at a depth of about one metre, where it rested together with fragments of other vessels. The missing neck of the amphora was reconstructed using the appearance of analogous vessels. A similar amphora, with a cylindrical neck and a biconical top with ears, was discovered in 1939 in a swamp in the valley of the Świna River near Świnoujście. The form of the vessels and the context of their discovery make it possible to associate both finds with the custom of the communities of the Funnel Cave culture, which lived in the 4th millennium BC in the Baltic area, who placed various objects in marshy places or water reservoirs. Such deposits, consisting of single amphorae, cups or other earthenware vessels, as well as products made of rock or organic material, are most often interpreted as traces of ritual behaviour, or manifestations of aquatic (water-related) worship widespread among early agricultural communities. In Western Pomerania such deposits were discovered by villagers during the excavation of peat for fuel, or peat and marl used to fertilise fields.

Krzysztof Kowalski