Kajtuś the dog found medieval gold bracteates in Valbrich. The bracteates were made of a thin piece of metal, usually gold or silver. They functioned as typical “regional pennies” currency of the Middle Ages. The use of individual series of coins from certain mints was relatively short. Therefore, such a finding is very special and meaningful for the culture.
The coins present different motifs and figures. According to Wikipedia.org, the bracteates are classified by the system of letter-named categories firstly made by the Danish numismatist Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, and then improved by the Swedish numismatist Oscar Montelius:
- A-bracteates (~92 specimens): showing the face of a human, modelled after antique imperial coins
- B-bracteates (~91 specimens): one to three human figures in standing, sitting or kneeling positions, often accompanied by animals
- C-bracteates (best represented, by ~426 specimens): showing a male’s head above a quadruped, often interpreted as the Germanic god Woden.[1]
- D-bracteates (~359 specimens): showing one or more highly stylized animals
- E-bracteates (~280 specimens): showing an animal triskele under a circular feature
- F-bracteates (~17 specimens): as a subgroup of the D-bracteates, showing an imaginary animal
- M-‘bracteates’ (~17 specimens): two-sided imitations of Roman imperial medallions
The bracteates found in Valbrich by the dog Kajtuś. On Thursday, April 7th, 2022, Kajtuś and his owner notified the delegacy of the Wroclaw Monument Preservation. The next day, Marek Kowalski, Senior Inspector for Archaeological Monuments, together with a team of archaeologists from the Institute of Archeology of the University of Wrocław, inspected the reported area.
The bracteates were stored in a dilapidated antique earthen pot. First examinations allow determining the chronology of the finding for the first half of the 13th century and the identification of the mints suggests the workshops from Silesia, Brandenburg, and Saxony.