Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - A late medieval loop for hanging keys or a purse was found near Kamień Pomorski, a town in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship of northwestern Poland, on the Baltic coast.
The belt loop was discovered by a member of the Exploration Association for the Saving of Monuments, Saint Kordula. This organization unites history enthusiasts using metal detectors to uncover regional secrets through lawful searches.
Kamien Pomorski. Credit: Ralf Roletschek - CC BY-SA 1.0 fi
Only 15 artifacts of this kind have been unearthed in Europe to date. The Museum of the History of the Kamieńska Land, which houses this remarkable piece in its collection, announced the discovery on social media.
Grzegorz Kurka, the museum's director and an archaeologist, says this is an extraordinary find.
Credit : Kamien Land History Museum
In German literature, monuments of this type are called anthropomorphic Gürtelhaken, Figürliche Schlüsselhalter, Schlüsserhaken.
Grzegorz Kurka explained in a press release that these unique artifacts have been exclusively found in the northwestern region of Poland. To date, only a handful—15 to be precise—of these belt loops have been unearthed across Europe. The distribution is quite sparse, with one each in Hungary and Austria and a dozen in Germany, with Bavaria being the hotspot for most discoveries.
Credit: Kamien Land History Museum
The archaeologist pointed out that the newly found belt loop is 56 mm tall. It is well-preserved and features an anthropomorphic design on the front panel with a simplistic representation of a head. The hands are depicted resting on the hips, extending outward to form an arc with 4mm holes.
The torso and hips display diagonal and horizontal markings, suggesting a late Gothic costume. A vertical hole measuring 13mm is found below this costume design, followed by another smaller hole likely designed for hanging keys or a purse.
See also: More Archaeology News
The collection of the Kamień museum already includes two late-medieval sheds, discovered in 2017 and 2018. The first one was found near Trzebiatów, the second - in a field near Skarychów (Kamień Pomorski commune).
Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer
