Klaipėdos universitetas

A shield boss and a shield grip with silver decoration were recently found in the Przeworsk culture cemetery at Czersk in the Piaseczno district in central Poland. The shield boss, type J.7, has three times three bronze thimble-headed rivets, covered with silver. The bronze shield grip has silvered rivet plates with thimble-headed rivets, decorative filigree studs, and openwork decoration. The technique that was used to produce this specimen is not clear, despite metallographic analysis. The shield has analogies in Scandinavia (Hunn, Radved, Brostorp) and the northern Elbian circle (Hamfelde). It was probably a parade shield, an international sign of the warrior elite in the Early Roman Period in the barbaricum.

Graves of two warriors equipped with rich sets of weapons, emerge on the Celtic territories from the early La Tène period till the end of phase D2. Graves with double sets of weapons (one and two-edged swords) placed in metal vessels are known from the apparently Germanic cultures of northern Europe. Celtic graves are evident burials of two (or more) persons, warriors of similar status expressed by analogous weaponry. “Germanic” Oksywie Culture, and Scandinavian finds are burials of individual persons, notable warriors, who were given special sets of weapons to show their social position. A similar situation observed at an archaeological level could have had different grounds and meant different phenomena.