Kiełpino

Kiełpino, Kartuzy commune, Pomeranian Voivodeship (former German name Kelpin, Kr. Danziger Höhe), site of discovery in a peatland of a deposit of two silver brooches, some forty or so glass and amber beads, silver rings and a round object (fig. 1.). All of them are now missing. The brooches had a half-round head plate with a pin onto which was threaded a large hollow knob. The larger brooch had two more such knobs on its axle terminals, which the smaller brooch had lost, along with its spring. In both brooches the bow was short and markedly curved, the foot sub-lozengic, with two half-round  projections near the bow. The brooches differed in their execution technique and ornamentation: the larger specimen was in sheet silver, with a stamped and chased design in Sösdala style →Sösdala-Untersiebenbrunn Style. The other brooch was cast, decorated on the head plate, bow and foot with chip-carving (Kerbschnitt).

The larger brooch is close to type Wiesbaden, more notably, to brooches found in the deposit from →Trzebiatów (former Treptow) and from →Świelino (former Schwellin), although its ornamentation is different. The styles of the brooches are typical for the first half of the 5th century, the cast specimen is a little later stylistically than the sheet brooch. The deposit from K. dates to mid-5th century.

JS

Literature: W. La Baume, Germanische Funde der Völkerwanderungszeit aus Nordostdeutschland, Blätter für Deutsche Vorgeschichte 2, 1925, p. 15-30; W. La Baume, Urgeschichte der Ostgermanen, Ostlandforschungen 5 (1934), p. 149, Fig. 72; K. Godłowski, Zur Frage der völkerwanderungszeitlichen Besiedlung in Pommern, Studien zur Sachsenforschung 2, 1980, p. 63-108; M. Tempelmann-Mączyńska, Die Perlen der römischen Kaiserzeit und der frühen Phase der Völkerwanderungszeit im mitteleuropäischen Barbaricum, Römisch-Germanische Forschungen 43, Mainz am Rhein 1985, p. 284, Fig. 24; M. Mączyńska, Zmierzch kultury wielbarskiej – czego nie wiemy? [in:] M. Fudziński, H. Paner (Ed.), Nowe materiały i interpretacje. Stan dyskusji na temat kultury wielbarskiej, Gdańsk 2007, p. 365-401.

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  Fig. 1. The deposit from Kiełpino. Tempelmann-Mączyńska 1985, fig. 24.