Speaking of Przeworsk culture warrior graves…

An interesting counterpart to yesterday’s post: an excavation of a Przeworsk culture cemetery in Kazimierza Wielka, 100 miles northeast of Glinka, has uncovered a warrior grave that contains not just the traditional iron weapons, but also an exceptionally rare Roman bronze urn (situla). Its type dates it to between the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D.

The vessel, classified as an Eggers 18 type, contains the cremated remains of the deceased. It features decorative dolphin-shaped fittings and is intact and in excellent condition. These were expensive imports from the Roman Empire and are exceptionally rare finds in Poland. Only seven have ever been found in the territory settled by the Przeworsk culture, and only four of those were used as cinerary urns.

The excavation uncovered weapons next to the urn: a sword, a shield boss and two spearheads. The were ritually bent and burned, consistent with the cremation practices of the Przeworsk culture as seen in the Glinka burials.

This Przeworsk cemetery is unusual for containing both cremation burials and whole-body inhumations. Cremations were the standard burial practice for the Przeworsk culture, but in this cemetery inhumations greatly outnumber cremations. Since excavations of the cemetery site began three years ago, archaeologists have unearthed four cremation burials, 23 inhumation burials and 12 quadrangular funerary monuments.

The inhumations are all oriented north-south with the heads facing south. The bodies were placed on their sides in a crouched position. The jewelry, clothing fragments and adornments found with the skeletal remains indicate most of the deceased were women. One of the inhumations unearthed in this year’s excavation contained the skeleton of a woman adorned with a double necklace with glass, stone and bronze beads, a belted pendant and bucket-shaped pendants made of bronze and iron. Two identical bronze brooches were also found, one at the sternum and one above the head. The style of the fibulae date the grave to the late 2nd century, the youngest objects discovered in the cemetery.

Some of the inhumed deceased had missing upper body bones while the rest of the skeleton was intact. This suggests the bones were deliberately removed in a previously-unknown practice involving the reopening of recent graves after the soft tissues had decayed and the removal of certain bones.

* This article was originally published here