Medieval Mace Heads and Flail Striking Heads from the Old Collections of the Archaeological Museum in Cracow

Abstract

In the Department of the Old Collections of the Archaeological Museum in Cracow a small, butdiversified on the account of forms, group of medieval mace heads and flail striking heads is stored. Some of themhave been already published; others are presented for the first time in this bacellistic contribution. The mostof them are – regrettably – artifacts of unknown origin and we may only guess that they were found beforethe World War II in the area of former Ruthenian lands of contemporary Ukraine. A smaller part of themare artifacts which place of discovery, sometimes also their discoverer, are known. The vast majority of theseartifact are Ruthenian handicrafts dated to the 12th – the half of the 13th century, but there is also an olderRuthenian flail striking head, a younger Hungarian mace head and several specimens of uncertain chronologyand provenience. Artifacts in this article are discussed in the order corresponding to schemas of types of East-European mace heads and flail striking heads elaborated more than a half century ago by A. N. Kirpičnikov.