For the first time in the historical research in the Baltic, the author has created a set of images with the sacred trees of the Prussians and their northeastern neighbours, the Curonians. The sacralization of the oak and the perception of its connection with the god of thunder and lightning, characteristic of most Indo-European peoples at an early stage of the formation of their cultures, were pictorially fixed among the Prussians in the 5th century C.E. In subsequent eras, various forms of the depiction of the sacred tree indicated that it occupied an important place in the Prussian cult. This conclusion is confirmed by the written reports about the sanctuary of Romow, principal for many Baltic tribes and located in the Prussian land of Nadruvia. In the center of this sanctuary grew an evergreen sacred oak tree, while its crown concealed the images and symbols of the Prussian gods. Even after centuries of the Teutonic Order’s rule, Prussia retained the rudiments of the cult of the tree, which was the place of sacrifice for the Prussian peasants in the middle of the 17th century. Archaeological data from the Viking Age directly testify to the close ties of the Prussians and the Curonians, primarily in material culture. Whereas with the Prussians, images of the sacralized tree were already known in the Attila era, the Curonians saw them appear only in the post-Viking time. As a result, it can be assumed that the aforesaid pictorial tradition (or even the entire cult of the sacred tree) came to the area of the Curonians from their southwestern neighbours. To this very day, the old wooden buildings of Zelenogradsk (Cranz), a town located at the base of the Curonian Spit, have preserved decorative details of the pediments, showing stylized representations of a sacred tree with three branches/sprouts or a tree with a cross-shaped crown, guarded by two dragons. Considering the fact that the part of Sambia where the aforesaid city is now located, in the Viking era and thereafter received groups of the Curonians, which is evidenced in the archaeological material, it is possible to assume with a great degree of caution that the decor of the local residents’ houses showcase some Curonian visual motifs dating back to tradition of the sacred tree.

The article deals with one of the leading types of funeral ceramic vessels in the Prussian archaeological culture, biconical “temporary” urns. Fragments of calcified bones were brought in these vessels from the funeral pyre and emptied in the grave. In the sixth and seventh centuries, the “temporary” urns were thrown in the grave after the bones and probably deliberately smashed. The typological analysis, a standard typology method in the archeology of the Prussians, helps establish the seriation of biconical vessels. They were dated, first relatively and then absolutely, when juxtaposed to the seriation of crossbow-shaped brooches from the archeological complexes with specific vessels. The shapes of these brooches give indications for such dating. Thus, the forms and parameters of brooches, as well as the forms of vessels are chronological indicators. The author has come to the following conclusions. First, the use of biconical vessels by a group of the Western Balts during funeral ceremonies dates back to the era of Roman influence. Second, from the early fifth century, when the archaeological culture of the Old Prussians had been molded, the inhabitants of Sambia switched from urn cremation to the cremation of subtypes 1.2 and 2.1 (bones, not placed in the urn or scattered in the remains of a funeral pyre). These rituals, like some earlier urn cremations, suggest the use of “temporary” urns, i. e. biconical vessels, to bring bones from a pyre to a grave. Third, biconical vessels lose their ornamentation, their height increased and the neck narrowed during the sixth and seventh centuries. These changes were of ceremonial significance that still remains unclear. Fourth, biconical vessels on the funeral sites of the Prussian archaeological culture date to not later than the early seventh century. The Prussians employed bronze dishes as “temporary” urns at the final stage of the Viking era and until the thirteenth century as has been evidenced by the excavations of the burial ground “Kl. Kaup”.

Ranged combat weapons (bows and arrows, darts) of the Western Balts have been largely overlooked by European archaeologists. The article examines the rarest finds in Prussian archaeology, arrowheads of the Viking age. This variety of archaeological finds in historical Prussia is quite different from the situation in Lithuania. While in Lithuania arrowheads are found mainly in fortified settlements and point at the enemy’s onslaughts, in Amberland they were found exclusively in burial sites. This is largely the result of poorly studied Prussian settlements due to objective reasons. Arrowheads have been found only occasionally in most of the funerary complexes referred to in the article, and the most probable reason for their presence in the burials is the death of the buried person. That is why they had not been removed during his/her life. The finds of arrowheads with thorns at the graveyard of the Kaup mountain area allows us to draw analogies to the similar arrowheads at the Kaukai fortified settlement of the Jatvians. This burial ground, containing the remains of West-Baltic merchants, craftsmen and commoners, who lived here in the 9th through 13th centuries, is related to the commercial settlement of the Viking Age at the planigraphic level. This settlement was an important link in the chain of trade centres of Baltic coast inhabitants and occupied an important position on the Neman amber route in the 11th and 12th centuries. We may suppose that Prussian and Couronian merchants clashed with local natives of the Upper Neman region, who used such arrowheads, judging by the finds from the Kaukai fortified settlement. Navigating the river Nemen was not always safe for these merchants. Lancet-shaped arrowheads from Kaup may be evidence of conflicts between local inhabitants and Scandinavians, who were competitors of Prussian merchants on the Baltic trade routes.

The article addresses a poorly studied issue of the social signifi cance of some pieces of the Prussian warrior’s equipment on the eve of the Teutonic Order invasion in the Baltic Prussia. The comparative analysis of some elements of the military material culture of the inhabitants of the Amber Region makes it possible to draw the following conclusions. In the Merovingian period, Prussian masters creatively modified (rather simplifi ed) Western European elite products, focusing on the needs of the top Prussian warriors. At the end of the Viking Age, in a number of cases, local producers independently created prestigious and socially significant items for the Prussian military nobility. First of all, this refers to bronze spurs covered with silver and imitating gold. In the latter case, the find at the Birka burial site suggests that the Sambians imitated Scandinavian bronze spurs. In the fifth–eleventh centuries, Prussian jewelers and blacksmiths used socially significant products of Western craft smen as models for their elite products, but at the beginning of the Order time, local craftsmen directly copied elements of chivalric equipment. A pair of silver-plated spurs, originating from a ruined fourteenth-century Prussian inhumation and found in the layer of the Alt-Wehlau/Prudnoe burial ground, typologically copies the knight’s spurs. However, the stylized figurines of goats, mythical companions of God Perkuno, presented on these spurs, point to fact that these luxurious objects were commissioned by a Prussian aristocrat who went over to the side of the Teutonic Order and tried to imitate the Order knights in his armor. The same Prussian aristocrats also owned the “chivalric belts” mentioned in Order documents, which denoted the high social status of the emerging stratum of local feudal lords. Found in the inhumations of the Alt-Wehlau/Prudnoye burial ground, such belts were made following the example of the Order belts. However, though the cover plates of the Prussian belts, according to the Order tradition, bear the image of a cross pattée, the buckle shows a stylized image of the above-mentioned goat — the mythical companion of Perkuno. This specifi city of the products of the Prussian masters, which imitate the Order items, does not allow us to say that the set of equipment of the vitings was identical with the knights’ armor.