A multi-coil temple ring

A small three-coil bail was made of thin gold tape. Attached to a band of fabric or leather, it was a striking head decoration. Together with a dagger and bronze axe, it constituted part of grave equipment with skeletal burial discovered in a stone box on 4 May 1933 at the edge of a sandbank, at a depth of about 1 m from the surface. The bail was located at the temple, on the left side of the skull. Shortly after its discovery, the entire find was taken to the Museum in Trzebiatów. It was soon transferred to the Pommersches Landesmuseum in Stettin (Polish: Pomorskie Muzeum Krajowe w Szczecinie; English: Pomeranian State Museum in Szczecin), where it remained until 1944 when the collection was evacuated for fear of repeated Allied air raids on the city. The axe, dagger, and bail were taken deep into Germany alongside many other valuable artefacts. Only in 2009, due to the Polish-German exchange of ancient archaeological artefacts, did they return to Szczecin. The skeletal tomb from Śliwin, dated to the 2nd half of the 1st to the beginning of the 2nd Bronze Age (approx. 1700-1500 BC), is the only archaeological site in West Pomerania, containing bronze and gold objects. The research on the beginnings of the Bronze Age in the Pomeranian zone is based mainly on the so-called loose finds (without any known context of discovery), as well as hoards of bronze objects.

Dorota Kozłowska