Goths’ idigenous weapon? Wielbark Culture Axes from the Roman Period

Abstract The author studies the axe heads which may be attributed to the Wielbark Culture. They are grouped according to their finding contexts (possible grave finds, watery finds, possible Wielbark-culture objects from beyond its territory, stray finds). Majority of the Wielbark-culture axe heads dates to the Younger and Late Roman Period as well as the Early Migration Period. Early Roman Period items are almost lacking, which makes the hypothetical influence of the Late Pre-Roman military model (the Oksywie Culture) improbable. Axes were a popular weapon among the Balts, thus it seems probable that Wielbark-culture axes had been borrowed from the West Balt Circle. Popularity of the symmetrical forms of Group II after B. Kontny seems to confirm this supposition, although also other patterns i.a. Types Żarnowiec, Oder-Elbe and Leśnica are documented in the Wielbark Culture. Among them, the Żarnowiec Type has so far been associated generally with the territory of Poland, Type Leśnica – with the south of the Przeworsk Culture territory and the Oder-Elbe – with Luboszyce Culture, Elbe Germanic Circle and southern Scandinavia. Such an image requires verification: Types Leśnica and Żarnowiec are known from the Wielbark, Černâhov and the Sântana de Mureş Cultures and Oder-Elbe in Pomerania. The introduction of the axe took place simultaneously in some other cultural units: the Luboszyce Culture and Elbe Germanic Circle, probably in western Pomerania (the Dębczyno Group), and soon after in the Černâhov and the Sântana de Mureş Cultures. It seems that we deal with the real transformation of the Barbarian model of armament just before and during the crisis of the third century.