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

A novel carved amber bear was discovered when employees had been delving into the peat in 1887. It’s believed that this was worn as a protecting appeal throughout the Stone Age, as bears had been thought of 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, folks had been hunters throughout this era, so their archaeological proof is uncommon. Nevertheless, within the Pomerania area on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, Stone Age websites with artefacts have been discovered by archaeologists, comparable to instruments, pottery and weapons, together with the amber-made objects that had washed ashore. After a research of 2023 performed by archaeologists Daniel Groß and Peter Vang Petersen, the place a number of amber bear statuettes had 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 Warfare II

Throughout the finish of World Warfare II, Słupcio was taken out by Germans from Poland with different historic artefacts. The amber bear was then positioned within the Stralsund Museum till its return to Szczecin in 2009. In Germany, the specialists finding out it known as it “Bernsteinbär” (amber bear) and claimed the carving to be from an historic 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 an area 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 will 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.

Historical Occasions Perceptions

The amber bears could also be additional proof of the Palaeolithic custom of representing animals in cave work and moveable objects, they usually additionally present that folks shifted their looking from reindeer on the open tundra to elk and bear within the forest. Because of 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.