Decorated mortarboard goblet

Inside a clay vessel – the vase from Resko – there was a hoard of approx. 240 denarii found by chance in 1924 on a farmland. The finding is unique. Single coins are a more common discovery, since they often come from devastated deposits and are scattered on a vast area because of, for example, fieldworks. The vase has a round body, a neck slightly tilted inward, and a rounded mouth. It is decorated with four carved lines around the body, and its dark-brown colour surface is smooth. Such vessels are typical for the Migration Period in the middle of the 4th century and can be associated with the population of the so-called Dębczyno group. The Migration Period (which started with the Huns pillaging eastern parts of Europe in 375) in European history was a turbulent time of large migrations of Germanic tribes and Asian nomads. The end of this period is symbolically dated to 568 AD, the time of the last Longobards’ migration. During this era, which started in the late 2nd and ended at the beginning of the 6th century, the Western Pomerania region was inhabited by the population of the Dębczyno group, which was a mix of cultures from the Elbe region, Scandinavia, Vistula region, and the Black Sea region. It is believed that hoards were hidden when their owners encountered a threat (of war in particular), hoping that they will get it back someday. The mass burial of hoards in the ground, which took place at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, may indicate the fights between tribes. Another theory claims that such practice could have symbolic and cult-related meanings.

Monika Witek