| Summary: | A primeval archaeologist (MA 1955, PhD 1971),
an organiser of protection for monuments in the Białystok
province (1954–1980), Director of the Regional Museum
in Białystok (1974–1980) and the State Archaeological
Museum in Warsaw (1980–2000). He dealt with archaeology,
museology and the protection of monuments. He also
popularised related knowledge and linguistic and religious
issues. He established the provincial record of archaeological
monuments as well as conservation archives, both of
which were then developed at the museum. From 1959 to
1975 he was Scientific Secretary to the Yotvingia Scientific
Expedition. He was a teacher, an editor and a social activist.
He wrote over 200 publications, of which the most important
are The funeral rite of the Western Balts at the end
of antiquity (Warsaw, 1974); a critical study of Aleksander
Brückner’s work Ancient Lithuania: tribes and gods: historical
and mythological drafts (Olsztyn, 1979, 1984); Cecele.
Ein Gräberfeld der Wielbark-Kultur in Ostpolen (Warsaw,
1996); Krupice. Ein Gräberfeld der Przeworsk- und Wielbark-
Kultur in Ostpolen (Warsaw, 2005), Kurgans of leaders of
the Wielbark culture at Podlachia (Białystok, 2012); and
Switzerland. The cemetery of the Baltic Sudovian culture in
north–eastern Poland (Warsaw, 2013). He specialised in researching
Roman influence in Central Europe and the prehistory
of north–eastern Poland, the culture of Baltic tribes
(including the Yotvingians), Baltiysk and the Slavonic
border, and in the Przeworsk and Wielbark cultures. He discovered
and defined the Cecelska regional group, thus determining
the late phase of the Wielbark culture, starting
from the early period of Roman influence to its decline as
a result of tribal migrations; their kurgans traced the areas
of relocation of the Goths and the Gepids from the Baltic
Sea to the Black Sea. His successful exhibitions included
“The Balts – northern neighbours to the Slavs” (displayed
in Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Italy and Germany
several times), “Treasures of primeval Poland” (in Padua,
Turin, Aquileia, Schollach) and “The prehistory of Warsaw”
(Berlin). He was a member of museum councils as well as
the council for museums at the Ministry of Culture and
National Heritage.
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