Decorated goblet

The reconstructed earthenware vessel - a goblet decorated on the neck with circumferential imprints of the so-called bipartite cord, was donated in 1877 to the Pomeranian antiquities collection of the Society for History and Antiquities of Pomerania (Gesellschaft für Pommersche Geschichte und Alterthumskunde) in Szczecin. It was donated by the landowner Ballmann together with a second undecorated earthenware vessel or pot form. Under unknown circumstances, both vessels were found by accident, probably during earthmoving or agricultural works in Dobropol Gryfiński (German: Dobberphul). The surviving archival records, copies of the Society's collection inventory, and the Society's published activity report for April-October 1877 provide two slightly divergent versions of their arrangement at the time of discovery. The goblet and cup were either found separately under a stone or stood under a separate stone. However, the records indicate that the vessels did not come from a single assemblage. The almost complete state of preservation allows the assumption that they may have come from the equipment of graves situated nearby. The presumed cemetery or, less likely, the settlement must have functioned for a more extended period or been used several times. It is evidenced by the different forms of the two vessels and the decoration of the goblet with cord impressions, with no ornament on the potted vessel. The first form is characteristic of the Late Neolithic phase of the Funnel Beaker culture (c. 2800-2300 BC). Undecorated vessels did not appear until the last centuries of the 3rd millennium BC and became more widespread in the oldest period of the Bronze Age (2000-1700 BC), when the Pomeranian communities originating from the Corded Wares culture formed a local cultural group on the lower reaches of the Odra River.

Krzysztof Kowalski