65. Sachsensymposion in Warsaw

2014.09.20 -

On 13-17 September 2014 the University of Warsaw played host to the 65th edition of the prestigious International Sachsensymposion, the first to be held in Poland. This year its theme was: Interacting Barbarians. Contacts, Exchange and Migrations in the First Millennium AD. Founded in Cuxhaven in 1949 the International Sachsensymposion is an association of researchers with interest in the archaeology of the Saxons and their neighbouring peoples in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages.

(https://www.sachsensymposion.org/en/mitglieder#hauptmenu). In the past its members came from the Benelux, Germany, Great Britain, France, Scandinavia and the United States. Only in 2012, thanks to the initiative of Professor Claus von Carnap-Bornheim, Chairman of the Coordinating Committee, Polish archaeologists were invited to join the Sachsensymposion. Of seventeen members from Poland, ten have been involved in the MPOV Project, two of them (M. Przybyła and A. Bursche) joined the Coordinating Committee.

Five MPOV Project Team members have been on the Organizational Committee of this year’s Sachsensymposion and on its Steering Committee: A. Bursche, B. Kontny, M. Mączyńska, J. Schuster and A. Zapolska. The keynote lecture given by A. Bitner-Wróblewska and M. Mączyńska was Hic Suebiae finis! The South-eastern Baltic zone in the late antiquity.

A. Bursche, M. Przybyła J. Schuster, M. Wołoszyn and A. Zapolska of the MPOV Project Team presented their papers, B. Kontny contributed a poster on finds of relief brooches from Poland (cf program:

 https://www.sachsensymposion.org/65.%20Sachsensymposion%202014%20Warschau.pdf).

Over a hundred researchers took part in the Conference, and contributed fifty-three papers and ten posters. After the Symposium, participants were invited to join a research tour to the village of Tum (site of a 12th-century Romanesque Collegiate Church)

, to the birthplace of Frederic Chopin at Żelazowa Wola, the museum of prehistoric iron metallurgy in Pruszków, the site of the former mausoleum of Paul von Hindenburg at Olsztynek, the site of the Battle of Grunwald, and to the historic cities of Elbląg, Malbork, Gdańsk, and to Biskupin.

Keynote lecture by Anna Bitner-Wróblewska and Magdalena Maczynska, ›Hic Suebiae finis!‹ The South-eastern Baltic zone in the Late Antiquity

Jan Schuster, ›Wandernde‹ Funde? Zur Nachweisbarkeit interregionaler Kontakte in der Kaiser- und Völkerwanderungszeit anhand ausgewählter Beispiele des Ostseegebietes

Marzena Przybyła, Lords of the Rings – some considerations about a classification of the golden Scandinavian snake rings and its interpretational implications

Aleksander Bursche, The medallion(s) from Transylvanian Szilágysomlyó rediscovered? A missing link between Roman gold medallions, barbarian imitations and Scandinavian bracteates

Anna Zapolska, Late Roman and Migration Period deposits as a perceptible sign of elusive goldsmiths

Marcin Wołoszyn, East-Central Europe, 5th to 7th century: between ›slawische Landnahme‹ and the making of the Slavs

Poster: Bartosz Kontny The first reliefbrooch from the territory of Poland