A bronze bar

This mysterious narrow object with a semi-circular cross-section was made of bronze. On one side, it is pointed; on the other, straight cut. Its surface is slightly undulating, "rough". It belongs to the category of the so-called "grzywnas" - metal products with deliberate shapes (e.g., a bar or a hoop), which, however, had no final, functional form. In other words, they are considered semi-finished products or raw materials used by prehistoric metallurgists. The bar was found under a barrow. It is said to have been part of a hoard trove that included numerous grzywnas, which were rumoured to have been accidentally "unearthed by pigs". What happened to most of the alleged grzywnas is not known. However, what is certain is that one was donated to the Society of Antiquities (Towarzystwo Starożytności) in Szczecin in 1828 by Schulte, a judge, from Słupsk. It was kept in the Szczecin collection until 1944 when it was evacuated deep into Germany. It returned to Szczecin in 2009 due to the Polish-German exchange of old archaeological collections. The Dargoleza ingot grzywna, dated to the Early Iron Age, i.e., the Hallstatt period C-D (c. 750-450/400 BC), belongs to the group of relatively rare finds in Poland.

Dorota Kozłowska