Główczyce

Główczyce, Słupsk district, Pomeranian Voivodeship (Germ. Glowitz, Kreis Stolp), site of discovery in 1896 in the northern area of the village during gravel extraction of at least two inhumation burials deposited in graves of an unspecified form, with a stone construction. Grave inventory elements (no attribution to grave assemblage): (a) four iron swords, incl. a double-edged specimen (spatha), L. 88 cm, W. 4.7 cm, hilt W. 11 cm, with a bronze sword hilt fitting; two swords, L. 75.5 cm, 80.7 cm; a fragment of a single-edged sword; (b) four iron spearheads, L 36.7 cm, 35.3 cm, 31.3 cm, 30.5 cm; (c) bronze buckle with a corrugated loop; (d) iron pointed shield boss, H. 8.6 cm, collar D. 14 cm, type – group VIII of J. Bemmann and G. Hahne; (e) bronze sword scabbard mounts type Snartemo; (f) fragment of a pottery vessel. The graves date to the late 5^th – early 6^th century (→Migration Period  phase E) – fig. 1. The military objects have analogies in Denmark (Kragehul), Vorpommern (Friedrichsthal), Norway (Snartemo), Gotland (Balhaldersted) and the British Isles (Little Wilbraham). Most of them correspond to group Snartemo, thought to derive from the Rhine culture environment, and are noted in Scandinavia on the turn of the 5^th and the 6^th centuries. Outside Scandinavia (e.g., Bavnegaard – Bornholm) dress accessories of a similar form are known from Pomerania (Witkowo), the Danubian  region and Eurasia. The grave inventories from G. represent the relics of a small settlement enclave of a population from Scandinavia, presumably Gotland or Bornholm, arrived to the area on the Lower Łupawa and the Łeba rivers during the second half of the 5^th century or in early 6^th c. (G., →Głuszyno , Gorzano, Witkowo), one of the last elements of Antique culture in Pomerania. They document contacts of the local population with the Baltic islands. In 1896 the artefacts from G. passed to Danziger Museum. Their present location is unknown.

HM

Literature: E. Petersen, Der ostelbische Raum als germanisches Kraftfeld im Lichte der Bodenfunde des 6.-8. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 1939; H. J. Eggers, Grabfunde der Völkerwandserungszeit aus Pommern, Baltische Studien, N.F., vol. 46, 1959, p. 13-28; J. Żak, Studia nad kontaktami handlowymi społeczeństw zachodniosłowiańskich ze skandynawskimi od VI do VIII wieku n.e., Wrocław 1962.

• full resolution

  Fig. 1. Główczyce, Słupsk district; objects surviving from two inhumation grave inventories (H. Machajewski 1992).