A bow brooch with three knobs, a half-round head and a foot terminal in the form of long projection, a catchplate and a fragment of a pin hook. It is decorated with chip carving (Kerbschnitt) in the form of meander along corrugated edges of the plate, volute motifs on the head and grooves on the projections.
Similar brooches are often found in southern Europe, areas occupied by the Ostrogoths or the Gepids, northern Serbia, Vojvodina on the Danube and the Mureș in central Romania. The closest analogy, however, is a brooch found in one of the graves in Kerch, in eastern part of the Crimea. Gepid brooches with five knobs, decorated with plant ornament and a single lozenge on the foot, dated to the first half of the 6th century AD, are also similar. Another parallel is Gurzuf (Velký Pesek-Sikenica/Kiszombor) type dated to the second half of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th century AD.
The brooch was discovered in 2007 during the archaeological excavation at a site, known also as Oszczywilk or Piłat in archaeological literature, that was inhabited several times in prehistory and the Middle Ages. During the first excavation ran by Jan Fitzke in 1934 three inhumation graves were discovered. The inventory from grave 1 included a similar brooch to the one mentioned above, decorated with spiral motifs on a head and a foot, which can be classified into type Sokolnice/Szekszár and dated to AD 450/460-480/490, despite not having the animal head foot terminal. Moreover, in this grave a crossbow brooch of Ramersdorf type was found which had been the most common in the second half of the 5th century AD.
Chronology:
the second half of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century AD
Museum collection:
the Regional Museum in Kalisz
by S. Miłek
