Axe

The relic was found in 1960 in Lublin, in the area of Głęboka and Gliniana Streets. During the excavation of clay in a now non-existent brickyard, a burial was accidentally found. Archaeologists were informed about the discovery and started rescue work.

It turned out that beside the skeleton in the grave equipment there was an interesting stone axe and two flint tools. Unfortunately, since the find was accidental, we cannot say whether the grave equipment is complete.

After analysing the artefacts, it turned out that it is a tomb of the rope pottery culture. The community of this culture (whose name derives from the characteristic ornamentation of pottery by means of an imprint of a rope) lived near the present-day Lublin region between 2800 and 2300 BC.

Thanks to specialist anthropological research, we know that the buried owner of the stone axe was a man about 174 cm tall, who was over fifty-five years old at the time of his death. Thanks to the c14 examination of the skeletal bone sample, we know that he died between approximately 2776 and 2577 BC.

The presence of an axe in a male grave of the corded pottery culture is very common. They had many functions in everyday life; they were a tool for processing, a weapon of war, and a symbol of power.

The described axe, as it turned out after petrographic research - was made of amphibole slate, which was often used in the Neolithic for making stone tools. All its surfaces were polished and honed (for more on the process of making the axe from stone, see the description of the 530-A-ML monument).

Despite subsequent field inspections by archaeologists, we unfortunately do not know whether this was just a single burial or whether no other graves were recorded due to the destruction of the site.