Beaded necklace with pendant

This necklace originally consisted of 47 amber and glass beads. It was discovered in an inhumation grave in a cemetery in Lubowidz, one of the most important archaeological sites connected with the people of the Wielbark culture from the older Roman period in the 2nd century. This culture occupied most of Pomerania between the 1st and 4th centuries. Its name comes from the cemetery in the town Wielbark near Malbork. Apart from inhumation graves in the cemeteries of Wielbark culture, we can also find cremation burials. The necklace was not the only element of grave goods of a person buried in the mentioned grave. Apart from the necklace, some bronze ornaments were found - two different fibulae, two bracelets with traces of filigree-like decoration, an oval belt buckle, two pins, two metal pipes with rivets and a clay spindle whorl. A distinctive feature of the Wielbark culture is the lack of iron objects and weapons in the graves. The cemetery in Lubowidz was discovered in 1898. The first excavations were conducted in 1938-1939 by Helmut Agde on behalf of the Pommersches Landesmuseum in Szczecin. They were connected with the progressive destruction of the cemetery located on the gravel pit. Earlier, random finds were systematically catalogued by Eduard Stielow, director of the Social Welfare Office in Lębork, who in the 1930s was also the local guardian of the historic monuments. The materials discovered in the cemetery in Lubowidz in the years 1898, 1926 1932, 1934 and 1938 were transferred to the Museum in Szczecin and to the Westpreussisches Provinzial-Museum in Gdańsk. Some of them were described in a local periodical Heimatkalender für den Kreis Lauenburg in Pommern. In 1938 the first collective study of finds from the cemetery in Lubowidz was published as a term paper of H.J. Freyrat written under the supervision of Helmut Agde. A full monograph on the cemetery by Ryszard Wołągiewicz, an archaeologist from the National Museum in Szczecin, was published in 1995.

Bartłomiej Rogalski