Fishing net weight

Weights have been used since the Middle Ages and even earlier to ballast fishing nets. They were called gręzy in the vernacular of some regions. In combination with floats, weights allowed the net to take the right shape in the water and maintain the right depth, which was important for effective fishing. Weights were made with a range of materials, such as stones, and fire-baked clay, while later they were also made of iron, lead concrete, or cement. Other items used to ballast the nets were sandbags. The weights were usually crafted by the fishermen themselves. The featured specimen from the first half of the 20th century is made of stone surrounded by a forged iron clamp with an oval link serving to fasten it to the net. This type of weight is the most common object in the collection of the Pomeranian Ethnography Department of the National Museum in Szczecin. Another type of weight represented in Szczecin's ethnographic collections is a rectangular plate made of iron or clay. Agnieszka Slowinska