MEDIEVAL FLAIL STRIKING HEAD WITH А DRAGON FROM KRYLOS (FORMER HALYCH)

Abstract

In the Department of the Old Collections of the Archaeological Museum in Cracow a small but interesting artifact from the small village of Krylos (Halych urban territorial hromada, Ivano-Frankivsk Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine) is stored. It is a bronze flail striking head (inventory number MAK/8972) with a spherical flattened corpus (in side view – isosceles trapeze) and a rhombus-shaped handle with an oval opening, decorated with two zoomorphic images – perhaps of dragons (one image is unnoticeable); very well-preserved (dark-brown colour). It has the dimensions: length 59 mm, width 35 mm, thicknesses 18 mm, weight 126 g. This flail striking head belongs to type IIIA according to Anatolij N. Kirpichnikov and it is dated to the 2nd half of the 11th–13th century, but in this case its chronology should be narrowed down. Its decoration refers probably to the Romanesque bas(relief depicting a dragon from Uspenski church in Halych that is dated to the 3rd quarter of the 12th century, so the specimen in question may derive no earlier than from the 2nd half of the 12th century.