Unusual funerary behaviour is now an exciting area of research in Central and Western European archaeology. In Poland, since the first half of the twentieth century, finds of atypical or deviant burials have been almost exclusively interpreted as evidence for so-called 'anti-vampire' practices, intended to prevent the dead from rising, haunting and hurting the living. In the last decade or so, new attempts have been made, especially in the UK, to develop more sophisticated understandings of deviant burials, and to perceive them not only in the context of popular superstition, but also with regard to judicial practices. Inspired by these new developments, this paper offers a range of new interpretations of deviant burials from early medieval Poland with a focus on burials where people were buried in a prone position, decapitated or covered with stones.
This article offers a new perspective on a diverse corpus of high-status Western Slavic objects from the domain of the Piast dynasty in Poland, dated between the tenth and eleventh centuries ad. It is proposed that the lavish zoomorphic decorations, often depicting snakes, found on jewellery, weapons, and equestrian equipment reflected Western Slavic pre-Christian religious ideas and served as material markers of elite identity. The results of this study lead to a more nuanced understanding of Western Slavic worldviews and their material expressions, paving the way for new investigations into cultural interactions both within and beyond the Slavic homelands.
Nadrzędnym celem artykułu jest analiza podstaw źródłowych oraz interpretacyjnych dotyczących tzw. masek z Opola. Przedmioty te na stałe weszły do studiów nad religią przedchrześcijańską Słowian Zachodnich, szybko osiągając status ikonicznych. Tym, co wzbudza zaskoczenie, jest widoczna w literaturze, w zasadzie bezkrytyczna akceptacja identyfikacji obu omawianych przedmiotów, jaką ponad półwiecze temu zaproponowała Helena Cehak-Hołubowiczowa. Żaden z późniejszych autorów nie podjął się polemiki z tymi ustaleniami, co w konsekwencji doprowadziło do ugruntowania badawczego paradygmatu. Maski z Opola stały się również podstawą do rozwijania rozmaitych hipotez dotyczących pogańskich form obrzędowości na ziemiach polskich we wczesnym średniowieczu. W prezentowanym tekście podjęto próbę rewizji dotychczasowych interpretacji oraz krytyki budowanych na jej fundamencie hipotez.
Many obstacles appear in attempts at explore and reconstruct the pagan rituals and beliefs of early medieval Pomeranians. This is not only due to the lack of written accounts referring to such practices, but also because of the various problems with unravelling the meaning and content of the archaeological evidence. Today, it is often difficult to determine how certain places or objects were perceived by past societies and with what symbolism they had been imbued. The burial finds are equally problematic since, while excavating cemeteries, we discover only the final result of the complex funerary process, i.e. the grave. Therefore, a question arises as to whether the material remains found at cemeteries could allow for revealing such abstract and subtle matters as eschatological beliefs. In an attempt to reconstruct the Slavic vision of the Otherworld, this paper will examine in detail the notions of the soul (spirit) and the meaning of grave-goods.
Islands have played a significant role in the region of Pomerania. Isolated from the rest of the landscape, islands appealed to the human psyche in a highly distinct way. Because of their geographic isolation, they allowed their inhabitants to develop relations of a transcendental character. According to scholars of religion, when people searched for a place of settlement, they looked, above all, for a specific, unique area. In a symbolic sense, such an area was regarded as a pivot around which social life would revolve. Those parts of land that were surrounded by water were associated with the mythic Primeval Land: the first land emerging from the Primeval Ocean and perceived as the centre of the world, axis mundi. Empirical material obtained in the course of archaeological research allows one to impute and follow such dynamics in traditional communities. By analysing selected sites, this paper explores the complex worldviews of pagan Pomeranians from the early Middle Ages. Material evidence of sacred space organization and relics of ritual activities visible in archaeological sites suggests that isolated parts of land, in the form of islands, were a key component in the creation of the religious and mythical worldview of the pre-Christian inhabitants of early medieval Pomerania.
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