2021

rozdział w monografii naukowej

polski

EN An important, but still poorly recognised aspect of funeral ritual of the community of the Wielbark culture are post-funeral interferences. This notion includes many activities recorded primarily within the space of inhumation graves in Wielbark culture cemeteries, but also sepulchral features created by communities of past cultures. This phenomenon is reflected primarily in the location of burials in the mounds of barrows from previous periods, but it also occurs that other parts of the grave infrastructure, such as stone cist grave, were “adapted. An example of such practices of the community of the Wielbark culture was discovered during research on cemeteries in Wilkowo Nowowiejskie. This place proved suitable for burying the deceased first of all from the population of the Pomeranian culture (five graves, HaC-HaD), and then, after a few hundred years’ break – from the Wielbark community (B2a to C1a). The last stage of using the space for sepulchral purposes falls within the early Middle Ages (seven inhumation graves). Two graves of the Pomeranian culture or parts of them were reused by the population of the Wielbark culture for their own funeral purposes. In the so-called secondary trench in the inhumation Grave 125 stone slabs were found. These slabs were originally Pomeranian culture side walls, and possibly also a cover of a Pomeranian stone cist (Grave 130). This information is a valuable addition to the knowledge of post-funeral manipulations in the territory of the Wielbark culture. The use of stones from the destroyed Pomeranian culture grave in order to fill the trench proves that not only material directly related to the disturbed burial was used for this purpose. A different use of the grave from the past is illustrated by Features 12 and 23. The inhumation grave of the Wielbark culture with a log coffin was partly placed in a stone cist of the Pomeranian culture. Inside the log there were poorly preserved skeleton fragments. Near the skull there was a bronze fibula (Type A. 137). A bottom of an urn of Pomeranian culture with burnt bone remains was revealed under the fractions of the skull bone, inside the log. Its presence in this place is a result of deliberate action. In the central and southern part of the grave pit, there were further numerous fragments of Pomeranian culture vessels, including a large fragment of a lid and burnt bones. The article discusses the attitude of the community of the Wielbark culture towards funeral features of the past, manifesting the destruction, but also the adaptation and reuse of relics from the past. The problem of perceiving the past in the past was analysed. Due to the time distance of several hundred years, the way of treating graves from the past cannot be seen as a form of a social dialogue with ancestors, but was rather an expression of different ways of referring to something that is undefined or to remains of the former material culture. An undefined status of discovered objects allows to provide them with new properties and competences, including magical and mythical ones. Even if the burnt remains were considered human, this does not mean that for the discoverers they represented dead people. It is more probable that such finds were seen as being of natural origin. Alternatively, a borderline between the nature and culture may have been recognised. From this perspective, it is not surprising that until the Modern Period in some parts of Europe there was a continuing popular belief (despite a simultaneous development of scientific thought which offered a proper interpretation) in the natural origin of vessels, coins, stone or flint tools discovered in the ground. This idea of such a “natural” genesis had further consequences – they were attributed with healing and magical abilities. For this reason, placing the head of the deceased on the fragments of the urn and bone remains of the Pomeranian culture could be a manifestation of magical thinking and spontaneous apotropaic use of such finds by the community of the Wielbark culture.

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Ze świata dawnych barbarzyńców: studia pradziejowe i wczesnodziejowe: księga dedykowana Profesorowi Henrykowi Machajewskiemu z okazji 70. urodzin i 50 lat pracy archeologicznej

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