Okucie pochwy miecza z Gardzienia koło Iławy. Przyczynek do studiów nad uzbrojeniem na pograniczu bałtyjsko-słowiańskim

In 2017, the lower fitting of a sword scabbard, discovered some 500 m east of Lake Stęgwica near Gardzień, Iława district, was transferred to the collections of the Ostróda Museum. The artefact is damaged, but only superficially. Despite the degradation of some parts of the decoration, on the basis of the general shape, the legible parts and stylistic features, this object can clearly be classified as type Va in the typology of the Lithuanian weapon specialist Vytautas Kazakevičius. The chronology of the artefact spans the 11th–13th centuries. According to the authors, the Gardzień chape should be considered a product of Prussian provenance, or perhaps from Courland, which is suggested by a find from Siraičiai in Lithuania, with the closest analogous ornamentation. The place where the chape was discovered was, during the early Middle Ages, in the zone broadly understood as the Slavic-Baltic border. In this sense, it is possible to connect the context of the discovery to the tripartite division of Prussian territorial ties: tribal territory (Pomesania), land (Prezla) and the lauks (campus Schinewite). The presence of this artefact in the area of today’s Gardzień can be associated with the frontier character of this region in the Middle Ages and the resulting militarisation of the population forced to face neighbouring aggression more often than usual