Magia ornamentu / Galeria / Necklace with dirhems
Necklace with dirhems
Chronology:
Early Middle Ages, late 10th – mid-11th c. AD
Location:
Kłodnica, Lubelskie, Poland; stronghold
Dimensions:
2.2 cm and 2.4 cm (coin diameters)
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences
A necklace made up of two silver coins (imitations dirhems originating from Volga Bulgaria in the 1040s) and 70 colourful segmented glass beads (yellow, blue, greenish), including ones decorated with gold foil. The discovery of the piece of jewellery of two dirham-like coins with accompanying glass beads, which probably formed a necklace, is Poland-unique. The items were unearthed during the examination of an early mediaeval granary building found in the centre section of the stronghold. Jewellery of this type was popular mainly in early mediaeval Kyivan Rus, especially in the Volga region, and in Scandinavia, where such ornaments are still found in female graves.
