Down by the river to the middle of nowhere? Avar-period metal artifacts discovered in Janowiec, site 3, Puławy district

Abstract

The text discusses the results of typological and metallographic analyses of metal objects dated to the 7th-8th centuries from Janowiec on the Vistula River, including five bronze strap fittings, two silver bracelets with trumpet-like endings, two bronze bars, and lumps of melted metal. The analyses of the fittings indicate their direct associations with the Avar Kaganate. Currently, the fittings from Janowiec comprise the most numerous assemblage of Avar imports from Polish lands. The form and technology of manufacture of the bracelets is typical for the area between the middle Dnipro and the middle Danube, while their decorative patterns refer to the art of the Avars. Interestingly, such an assemblage was discovered in the territory currently regarded as peripherical or even wholly uninhabited. The finds from Janowiec document contacts between the emerging “tribal” elites of northern and north-eastern Lesser Poland and the Transcarpathian areas and indicate the role of the Vistula as a communicational axis.