Pin

This high-quality clothing decoration was entirely cast in bronze in the early Iron Age, i.e. more than 2,700 to 2,400 years ago. It is a stately pin with well-balanced proportions. Its head is formed by two striking four-scroll discs, known as volutes or helix, and the original golden colour of the alloy shines through the brown patina. Apart from the fact that it was found in the village of Kępno, near Dobrzany, in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, no more is known about the circumstances of the discovery. Many years before the First World War, however, the pin was kept in the private collection of Friedrich Knack of Dobrzany, a teacher and well-known researcher of local history. The Szczecin Pommersches Landesmuseum (1927-1945) acquired it for its collection presumably in the late 1930s. In the 1970s the pin from Kępno Pomorskie is actually one of the isolated finds in Pomerania. In addition to it, another analogous piece is known from Mysliborz, once kept in the local museum and now in the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. These pins represent a group of creations known as Kuyavian or Staninian bronzes. It takes its name from the famous treasure from Stanomin in Kuyavia, where there was a thriving metallurgical centre in the early Iron Age. It is possible that both pins came from this area. Outside Poland, similar and equally dated creations are known from Jutland, Bavaria in Germany, as well as northern Italy, Austria, Moravia and Slovakia.

Dorota Kozłowska