An axe with centre wings

This massive tool cast in bronze is characterised by a slender trapezoidal blade that turns into a straight hilt. On both sides of the blade, there was formed a pair of the so-called middle wings, creating a place for placing a wooden handle. At the end of the hilt, a porous surface resembling a sponge can be seen. It is probably the result of an error during casting or secondary "over-baking" of the metal. The axe is part of the hoard, including three other specimens with wings and five bracelets. It was discovered in 1906 during the digging of foundation trenches on the plot of land belonging to the owner of the sawmill, Herman Porath. The objects lay together, directly in the ground, at a depth of about 0.5 m. They were transferred to the collection of the Society of History and Antiquities of Pomerania (Towarzystwo Historii i Starożytności Pomorza) in Szczecin. They were stored in Szczecin until August 1944, and then they were evacuated deep into Germany, together with other exhibits of high value, to protect the museum resources from possible destruction during the Allied air raids on the city. The Storkowo hoard returned to the Szczecin collections in 2009 due to the Polish-German exchange of archaeological artefacts. The Storkowo deposit dated to the 1st half of the 4th Bronze Age (approx. 1100-1000 BC) is connected to a very early stage of the Lusatian culture settlement in Pomerania. It was an exciting, transitional stage of development in which the traditions of grave cultures, erecting barrows and depositing their dead in the unburnt ground, were mixed there with the new trends of the cultures of the circle of ash fields, preferring the establishment of large burial cemeteries.

Dorota Kozłowska