Deposit of Arab coins and early medieval silver jewelry

An extremely valuable set of artefacts – a deposit of Arab coins and silver jewelry – has been recently added to the collection of the National Museum in Lublin.
This wonderful hoard was hidden in the second half of the 10th century, when Poland was ruled by Mieszko I or Bolesław the Brave, and Vladimir the Great ruled in Ruthenia.
The circumstances of its discovery are not clear, but it was found in the 1930s in the Polesie voivodeship near Pinsk on the Pripyat River (now Belarus). Going through various vicissitudes, it became the property of the Lublin collector, Prof. Edward Soczewiński, and at the end of 2020 it was purchased by the Museum from his heirs.
The deposit contains 541 early medieval silver coins – dirhams and almost 30 pieces of fine silver jewelry, richly ornamented with the technique of granulation and filigree. The jewelry set includes: crescent-shaped pendants - the so-called lunules, earrings (temple rings) and a ring. These types of ornaments were worn by the elite of contemporary society. The treasure also includes semi-finished products - coils of silver wire, probably intended for further work for a medieval jeweler.
The history of depositing the treasure of the precious silver metal is related to the functioning of the trade route between the east, especially Kiev, and Western Europe in the early Middle Ages, which led along rivers, among others, Dnieper, Pripyat or Bug. At that time, Arab coins made up the majority of the money used in this area.
The entire set of ornaments has been subjected to many tests and specialist analyses in scientific centers in Lublin, Kraków and Warsaw, as well as documented, including 3D scanning.