Meet Słupcio, the Stone Age Amber Bear That Survived Conflict and Time

A singular carved amber bear was discovered when employees have been delving into the peat in 1887. It’s believed that this was worn as a protecting allure through the Stone Age, as bears have been thought-about probably the most highly effective and threatening animal of that interval. This amber bear was named “Słupcio”, or a “little man from Słupsk” in Polish. A Polish kindergartner named it after profitable the competition of naming this artefact. Now, this carved bear is on the Nationwide Museum in Szczecin, positioned round 220 kilometres from the unique location the place it was discovered.

Discovery of Gummy Bear

Principally, individuals have been hunters throughout this era, so their archaeological proof is uncommon. Nonetheless, within the Pomerania area on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, Stone Age websites with artefacts have been discovered by archaeologists, akin to instruments, pottery and weapons, together with the amber-made objects that had washed ashore. After a examine of 2023 carried out by archaeologists Daniel Groß and Peter Vang Petersen, the place a number of amber bear statuettes have been found from the Baltic Sea, it was concluded that the objects are more likely to be from a interval of Palaeolithic custom, i.e. 50,000 to 12,000 years in the past.

After World Conflict II

In the course of the finish of World Conflict II, Słupcio was taken out by Germans from Poland with different historical artefacts. The amber bear was then positioned within the Stralsund Museum till its return to Szczecin in 2009. In Germany, the consultants finding out it known as it “Bernsteinbär” (amber bear) and claimed the carving to be from an historical interval. Since Slupcio was based greater than 100 years in the past, there have been nonetheless arguments when it was made.

Look and Use

This carved amber bear is now well-known as a neighborhood image, and its copies are widespread as souvenirs. The statuette is 10.2 centimetres lengthy and 4.2 centimetres tall, weighing 85 grams.
Within the statuette’s center half on the trunk, a gap might be seen that goes all through the entire physique, utilized by the traditional hunters to tie a strap throughout this gummy bear and carry it like a necklace or wrap across the waist or arm.

Historic Instances Perceptions

The amber bears could also be additional proof of the Palaeolithic custom of representing animals in cave work and moveable objects, and so they additionally present that folks shifted their looking from reindeer on the open tundra to elk and bear within the forest. Resulting from its properties of being translucent when polished and aromatic on burning, it was perceived as the fabric of magic, which reworked it right into a Stone Age amulet.