Bogusław Gediga

While hitherto the clearly visible connections between the Early Iron Age culture in Silesia and the Hallstatt one had been assumed as a result of the study of cremation cemeteries, the article attempts to strengthen this assumption with the archaeological data obtained from settlements, dated to that period. Majority of researchers studying the Hallstatt culture have been emphasizing the transformation of a social structure, occurring at the time, and reflected in archaeological material. Analogous phenomenon might be ascertained in case of several urnfield cemeteries from Silesia, particularly well-equipped chamber graves (eg. Domasław, Wrocław district), while also within some settlements, an example of which might be the Early Iron Age site in Milejowice, Wrocław district, recognized during a large-scale excavations, where several built-up concentrations have been distinguished, including one surrounded with monumental circles with a diameter of 85 m, formed by rings of postholes aligned one by one, forming a palisade-like structure. The article provides a brief analysis of the relics of the settlement, indicating that the social status and level of wealth of the inhabitants of the particular part of the settlement must have been outstanding. The obtained results of the study of selected sites from Silesia allow to conclude that culturally the area represented just another, regional, peripheral group of the Hallstatt circle.

In connection with the planned construction of the Wrocław bypass in the years 2006-2008, the rescue archaeological excavation team of the Wrocław Branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, carried out rescue excavations at the site 10/11/12 in Domasław. The most sensational results were obtained during the excavations of the cemetery of the population of the Lusatian culture, above all from the early phase of the Iron Age, the period when the image of the material culture of this community changed fundamentally. This is showed by the construction and grave goods of nearly 300 Hallstatt chamber graves, containing more than 50 luxury graphite-treated and painted pottery vessels, decorations, toiletry sets, tools, bronze vessels and weapons. At the cemetery, a fragment of a bronze sword’s blade was discovered in a grave dated to the IV/V period of the Bronze Age and seven iron and one bronze sword in the Hallstatt graves, undoubtedly imports from the north-Atlantic manufacturing centre. Metallurgical analyses of bronze artefacts may indicate the Alpine origin of the raw material, they also testify to the small qualities of iron swords for the purposes for which they were intended. In one case, the meteorite origin of the raw material was proved. The fact that swords were put to the graves together with the dead, certainly distinguished the individuals and showed their social position. In the light of many premises obtained during the excavations at the cemetery in Domasław, the sources are a confirmation of contacts, already mentioned in the literature, with the mediterranean civilization, mainly through the Hallstatt cultures.

A book The World of Colours of the Domasław Potters About 2800 Years Ago, is mainly aimed at presenting a beautiful collection of painted pottery, found in the course of archaeological excavations carried out in the years 2006-2008 at a cremation burial ground from the Early Iron Age (750 – around 400 BC) in Domasław, Wrocław County in Lower Silesia. Regardless of the basic purpose, which is enabling to learn about the colourful world of societies inhabiting our land almost 2,800 years ago and admire their imagination as well as aesthetic sense of making use of colours and creating motifs that decorated the pottery, there are also scientific and research objectives.