International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Marcin Wołoszyn
Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Warsaw, Poland, 
[e-mail]
Making Border of Kievan Rus’ Visible. Finds of Kolts from Poland
The Christianity embraced by Piast Poland, similarly as Premyšlid Bohemia came from Rome. 
The differences between the lands lying between the Odra and the Vistula rivers and the territory of 
the Kievan Rus’, converted in 988/989 from Constantinople, may be observed in the material culture, 
ranging from the Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque churches known from Poznań, Cracow or 
Przemyśl and the Orthodox churches of Kiev and Novgorod to fashions in the clothing worn by the 
elite subjects of the Piast and the Riurikid rulers.
One likely example of the impact of western culture on the jewellery of the Western Slavs could 
be type Orszymowice finger-rings (11
th
-12
th
cc.). Eastern Slav jewellery on the other hand evidently 
evolved with substantial impact from the Byzantine environment. One of the most distinctive female 
ornaments in Kievan Rus’ are decorative pendants known as 
kolts
. Present day Poland has come to be 
perceived as a country which is monoethnic and Roman Catholic but it is important to note that in 11
th
-
14
th
century the eastern region of modern Poland represented the western periphery of Kievan Rus’.
In recent years we have seen a major revival in the archaeological research in this region, and 
new finds include several 
kolts
and moulds for their production. Worth mention are two silver 
kolts
found at Trepcza near Sanok (grave finds?; 13
th
c.), four silver kolts from the hillfort at Czermno, site 
No. 1 (from two hoards dated to the 13
th
-14
th
c.), one more 
kolt 
from the same locality, recovered 
near the river Huczwa (site No. 70), and two moulds recovered in Chełm.
The present paper reports on the results of analysis (also metallographic) of these new and 
exciting finds. Made of tin, the 
kolt
from Czermno, site No. 70 appears to be an imitation of the 
more traditional silver and gold 
kolts
. The local production of 
kolts
in our region is suggested by 
the finds of casting moulds from Chełm, the medieval Kholm, a major centre of western Rus’ of the 
thirteenth century. According to the Galician-Volynian Chronicle, in the reign of Prince Daniel of 
Galicia (d. 1264) craftsmen, some of them from other areas of Rus’ took up residence in Kholm. It 
is possible that after the Mongol invasion (the fall of Kiev in 1240) some craftsmen may have fled to 
this previously peripheral, western part of Rus’. We have no finds of kolts from the territory of Piast 
Poland; the only kolt recorded in Bohemia is almost certain to be post-medieval import.
Consequently, 
kolts
are an attractive subject for research, for more than just their aesthetic 
value. They are a material marker of the elite in Kievan Rus’, a form which during the Early Medieval 
Period (11
th
- 13
th
c.) did not spread among its western neighbours.

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