Published: 2025-09-16

Early medieval granular ornaments from Polish hoards and graves. Soldering techniques and conservation problems.

Renata Czech-Błońska , Ewelina Miśta-Jakubowska , Władysław Duczko , Agnieszka Brojanowska , Dariusz Oleszak , Łukasz Kruszewski , Bożena Józefów-Czerwińska
Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
Section: Studies and Materials
DOI https://doi.org/10.23858/KHKM73.2025.1.002

Abstract

Silver ornaments from early medieval hoards from Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Scandinavia constitute a rich source material that is well recognized typologically in archaeology. Until recently, however, there has been limited access to knowledge related to analyses of the origin of raw materials or techniques of making such ornaments. The content presented in this article, focuses on this subject. In the opinion of the authors, the results of such analyses can relate not only to technological aspects, but also bring
new data on the scale of contacts and the flow of ideas associated with them, which in the case of Polish lands also applies to state-creative processes. At the same time, they
emphasize that the quality of material studies of the surface of ornaments is influenced by the ways in which such items are conserved. Preservation, carried out with chemicals,
usually makes it difficult to perform specialized analyses. Nevertheless, a preliminary examination of the surface before conservation makes it possible to recognize the ways
of soldering, indicating their source in ancient recipes. It was found that organic adhesives and fluorite as a flux, solders based on copper compounds, tin also lead, were used in the production of the ornaments studied. The results of specialized analysis indicated the technological similarity of Polish and Czech material.

Keywords:

Early Middle Ages, Slavic jewellery, granulation, goldsmith formulas, conservation, archeometallurgy

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Czech-Błońska, R., Miśta-Jakubowska, E., Duczko, W., Brojanowska, A., Oleszak, D., Kruszewski, Łukasz, & Józefów-Czerwińska, B. (2025). Early medieval granular ornaments from Polish hoards and graves. Soldering techniques and conservation problems. Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej, 73(1), 35–62. https://doi.org/10.23858/KHKM73.2025.1.002

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