Decorated bowl

A tall pottery bowl found in the cemetery of the Jastorf culture in Marianowo is decorated on its body with a simplified facial ornament in the form of a geometrised, artistic representation of a nose and eyes. This decoration indicates that the community using this cemetery continued earlier traditions characteristic of the Pomeranian culture (7th - 3rd centuries BC). The necropolis in Marianowo is one of the first sites associated with the Jastorf culture, which was present in Western Pomerania from the 3rd century BC. The culture is native to the northern part of Germany - its name comes from an archaeological site in the town of Jastorf in Lower Saxony. The bowl presented here served as an urn in a cremation grave. In the Jastorf culture, the bodies of the deceased were always cremated and buried within stone structures arranged in graves. In this case, two burials were discovered in the grave. In addition to a bowl with a facial ornament, the furnishings included two rings made of twisted bronze wire and a two-part clay pot. The cemetery in Marianowo was discovered by accident in 1934 during the clearance of a forest. The first amateur excavations were carried out by Martin Hasenjäger, the director of the Regional Museum in Stargard at that time. Further archaeological research of the site was initiated in 1936 by Hans Jürgen Eggers from the Pommerschesmuseum Stettin. In total, until 1945, about 14 different objects were discovered, mainly the cremation burials. After the war, in 1963, Ryszard Wołągiewicz from the Museum in Szczecin continued the excavations and discovered another 44 objects, also mostly the cremation burials. The archaeological site in Marianowo is dated to the pre-Roman period (3rd - 2nd centuries BC).

Bartłomiej Rogalski