The digital registration, scientific interpretation and cultural and historical classification of the southwest baltic material culture (arms, riding equipment, costumes, tools etc.) from the 9th to the 15th century A.D. from the collection of the former Prussia-Museum Königsberg.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Wemhoff
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2011 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 196374672

The project aims at the digital registration, the scientific interpretation and the cultural and historical classification of the southwest baltic material culture (arms, riding equipment, costumes, tools etc.) from the 9th to the 15th century A.D. from the collection of the former Prussia-Museum Königsberg in the inventory of the MVF Berlin. In this project, the declarative value of the 20.000 largely unknown medieval objects is intended to be examined and presented to the archaeological scientific community. This registration is an essential element of the current German, Polish, Russian and Lithuanian archaeological research of the former East Prussia.After about 13 months, the data of 4922 medieval objects of the Prussia collection which can be assigned to the place of discovery have been entered to the projects database. These data sets will be transferred to the digital object database of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz with the beginning of 2013 (www.smb-digital.de) and to the database of the long term project at the Academy of Science Mainz.The scientific significance of the former Prussia collection can be shown exemplarily by two case studies: The combined analysis of the medieval finds from Unterplehnen, Kr. Rastenburg (Równina Dolna, Poland), together with the remains of the former archives of the Prussia-Museum provides an opportunity to examine the historical relevance of the site and functions as a reference for the reidentification of objects with no connection to the place of discovery. The second study deals with the largest body of medieval objects from the Prussia collection: the iron stirrups, which appear in impressive numbers in East Prussia and reveal valuable information about the burial site chronology and social structure of the 9th to the 15th century, as well as the cultural relations between the Prussian settlement areas.The second year of the project will be related to the objects that cannot be associated with a specific site, but still contain information of typological and chronological importance. In the following third year, the efforts will be concentrated on the interpretation of the medieval material. Therefore selected groups of objects and sites will be examined (arms, costumes and metal vessels). The results of the project will be presented to the scientific community at an international workshop.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Eike Gringmuth-Dallmer