Silver buckle

A silver pin (fibula) was an element of grave goods from an inhumation grave discovered on a Wielbark culture cemetery in Drawsko Pomorskie. It is rather small, only 2 cm long, but its body is richly decorated with wires and two rows of balls, applied in the granulation technique. Due to the dynamic development of the goldsmith's craft in the Wielbark culture, which had begun at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, both in terms of jewellery techniques and ornamentation methods, this style is called the “Wielbark Baroque”. The burial in which the presented pin was found also contained two other fibulas. There are made of brass and also intricately decorated with gold foil appliqués and silver wires. All three pins are identically constructed. Depending on the technique in which they were made and construction features, pins from this period are divided into almost 300 variants. They constitute a very important group of monuments, as every type of fibula comes from a specific period of time. When a whole set of monuments is found in a grave, the fibulas will be used to establish the dating of the entire finding. The specimens from the burial in Drawsko have a typical transverse rib on their body, a so-called crest. The site in Drawsko was probably discovered in 1906 during the extraction of sand and gravel for the construction of a narrow-gauge railway track. The first documented grave is mentioned a year later, and rescue research was carried out by Dr Bernhard Faust, a teacher from Drawsko and an amateur archaeologist acting as a social guardian of historical monuments in the Drawsko region at that time. The work of such persons was legally regulated and very extensive in Western Pomerania before 1945. Many of the most important archaeological sites in the region were discovered thanks to these people. Based on the preserved documents and archives relating to the cemetery in Drawsko a total of about 70 graves can be identified today.

Bartłomiej Rogalski