Bead

The bead made of silver is part of a treasure of the 9th-century Arab coins (dirhems) from Lublin-Czechów. The treasure, found in 1945, probably included about a thousand coins, which were put into a clay vessel. The treasure also included two silver bars and an ear-piece. Both the bars and the dirhems, which were regularly broken into pieces, were used for payment purposes. The treasure was a merchant capital and comes from the area of today's Iraq (Baghdad?). It reached the area of early Slavic settlement of the Lublin region via Kievan Rus. The oldest coins were minted in 711/712, the youngest in 882/883.

The bead is extremely precise. Its production required great jeweller's skill. On each half there is a row of four buttons. The beads are joined by a wire with two rows of granules on both sides. The opening of the bead is also bordered with granulation. Between the cusps and the joining line of the hemispheres there are small rhomboids made of granules. The spaces between the cusps are decorated with rhomboids, on both sides of which there are also triangles.

This type of beads is known, among others, from the territory of the so-called Czerwieńskie Castles, i.e. a system of defensive castles on the Polish-Ruthenian border. The relics found there testify to trade contacts with the East - Byzantium and Central Asia, as well as with Western and Southern European countries. The centres of our region, such as Czermno (Czerwień) or Lublin, played an important role in those contacts.