Early Medieval Finds from Czechowice (Gliwice / PL)

Abstract

Early Medieval Finds from Czechowice (Gliwice / PL)

Several Polish and German institutions have preserved in their collections archival documents containing information relating to the accidental discovery of Early Medieval objects in the village of Czechowice (now within the city limits of Gliwice) in Upper Silesia. The artefacts, found in 1879 during the construction of a railway, were acquired by the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin and lost during World War II. Only recently, some of them have been identified in the collection of the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Berlin. The most important finds include a long, straight, single-edged sword representing a hybrid Old Hungarian-type weapon and a narrow hammer-axe of the Moravian type. Both pieces were discovered at the same place and probably belonged to the equipment of an inhumation grave dated to around the mid-10^th century.