Shaman staff from Szczecin-Podjuchy

The ornamented object made of deer antler interpreted as a shaman staff was found in Podjuchy, in the right-bank district of Szczecin. It is one of the few examples of figural art on objects made by hunting and gathering communities in the northern part of Europe. Only two such examples are known from Pomerania. The walking stick from Podjuchy is covered with a series of lines connected with short, diagonal lines, the so-called one-sided herringbone. The central decorative element is a schematic representation of a human figure with a diamond-shaped head and limbs with three fingers each. A similar object was discovered in Szczecin-Grabowo. However, it has a representation of an animal, probably a horse or an elk. The shaman staff from Podjuchy has a well-documented history. In 1934, it was donated to the Szczecin Pommersches Landesmuseum collection by Alexander Resner, a resident of nearby Zdroje, now also a district of Szczecin, who received a reward of five Reichsmarks for it. His son had discovered the object a few days earlier in a heap of sediment from the dredging of the Regalica river, the eastern branch of the Oder, in Podjuchy, near a railway line under construction. The discovery intrigued archaeologists from the Pommersches Landesmuseum, who searched the heap but found no other historical objects. The then Museum director, Otto Kunkel, informed the Museum in Berlin and the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz about the hoard. Particular interest arose around the ornament of a stylised human figure, widely discussed by researchers of all these institutions. At the turn of 1934/1935, the magic staff from Podjuchy was the object of two-month research in Mainz. By the end of the Second World War, it found its way to the Szczecin Museum. With the front line approaching, it was evacuated from Szczecin, along with other items of high scientific and exhibition value, and eventually found its way to the museum in Stralsund. It is now in the collection of the National Museum (Muzeum Narodowe) in Szczecin.

Michał Adamczyk