Iron Age8th–5th century BC · Wierzbica, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland
Searchers looking for 1939 war relics find Scythian arrowheads in Poland
Three-edged bronze arrowheads, bracelets and temple ornaments from around the 8th to 5th centuries BC came from a previously unknown site near the Ukrainian border.
In brief 3 key points
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- Bronze arrowheads and jewellery found at a new site in eastern Poland
- Finds may add evidence for Scythians west of the steppe
- Dating and the Scythian attribution are preliminary, with no excavation yet
Volunteers searching for relics of the 1939 fighting in eastern Poland have instead found bronze arrowheads, jewellery and other objects more than 2,500 years old. Heritage officials provisionally attribute the finds to the Scythians. They date them to the transition between the Bronze and Iron Ages. The objects came from around Wierzbica, close to Poland's modern border with Ukraine.
The finds lay outside any registered archaeological site. Officials think the spot is a new and possibly important location, with an unusually large concentration of bronze and copper objects. Archaeologists say the finds could add new evidence for Scythians in the region between the 8th and 5th centuries BC.
Found while tracing a 1939 regiment
The searchers belong to the Association for the Remembrance of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Border Protection Corps, a historical group in Lubycza Królewska. Jacek Kozak, Magdalena Leszczyńska, Paweł Szymański, Krzysztof Chmielewski and Jan Chmielewski were tracing the regiment's combat route. The regiment fought during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.
They worked under a permit from the Lublin Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments. When prehistoric objects began to appear, the finds were documented and handed to the heritage authorities. Every metal find was recorded with GPS coordinates. If archaeologists excavate, the spread of objects may help show where activity was concentrated and where the site begins and ends.
Dr Józef Niedźwiedź and Wiesław Koman carried out a preliminary examination. They worked with Professor Elżbieta Kłosińska and Halina Taras of the Institute of Archaeology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin.
Arrowheads of a Scythian type
Four three-edged bronze arrowheads are the most significant finds. This type is strongly associated with Scythian archery. It is one of the characteristic signs of Scythian presence and fighting across Eastern and Central Europe. The largest is about 4 cm long and 1.4 cm wide. It seems unfinished, with casting seams still visible along its edges.
Two smaller arrowheads, about 2.5 cm long and 0.9 cm wide, have no sockets. The fourth has a socket and measures about 3.3 cm by 0.8 cm.
The jewellery includes a bracelet made from a thin bronze sheet, about 1 cm wide and no more than half a millimetre thick. Small punched dots form triangles that point alternately up and down. The bracelet survives as a semicircle with a radius of about 10 cm. Its narrowing ends turn outwards into hooks. Parts of two twisted bronze-wire bracelets were also found.
The searchers also recovered several nail-shaped temple ornaments. One is almost complete, with a convex head 1.6 cm across and a pin about 6 cm long. Fragments of five more lay together, with heads between about 1.2 and 2 cm wide. Two others turned up elsewhere.
A cast bronze ring, 3.4 cm across, may have been sewn onto clothing. Researchers have also suggested it might have served as commodity money or an object of exchange. A bent bronze wire about 3 mm thick has a pointed lower end and a flattened top. It may be the pin of a fibula, an ancient brooch for fastening clothes, or another dress pin. That identification is tentative.
A bronze dagger from land belonging to the village of Kornie, in the same municipality, may belong to about the same period. It is about 15 cm long and 2.4 cm wide at the base of its tang. Its blade narrows to a triangular point and is around 2 mm thick. Its edges are heavily chipped and its patina is scratched. It has been provisionally dated to the Late Bronze Age or early Iron Age and associated with evidence of Scythian activity.
The Scythians were nomadic peoples of Iranian origin. Between roughly 900 and 400 BC, they and related groups occupied or influenced a vast area across the Pontic-Caspian steppe and into Central Asia. They were mounted warriors who used powerful composite bows.
Their appearance in what is now Poland is generally connected with contacts and raids into lands of the Lusatian culture during the Early Iron Age. Evidence of Scythian activity has been found as far west as Lower Silesia. At Chotyniec in south-eastern Poland, archaeologists have investigated a fortified settlement of the Scythian cultural world.
Further investigation at Wierzbica could show whether the objects reflect direct Scythian activity, contact with local communities or something else. The finds are expected to go to the museum in Tomaszów Lubelski.
Sources (1)
Official announcementfrom Lublin Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University and Museum in Tomaszów Lubelski
- Unexpected discovery reveals lost traces of Scythians in Poland (HeritageDaily)
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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