During excavations carried out under the now defunct building of the iconic ice cream parlour “Miś”, at 18 Sukiennicza Street in Gdańsk, archaeologists uncovered a unique testimony to the early Middle Ages – a stone tombstone with the image of a knight. Covering an area of around a thousand square metres, the work is being carried out in excavations up to four-five metres deep. This site is regarded as the ‘heart of historic Gdansk’, where the layers of earth conceal the remains of some of the oldest religious buildings in Pomerania.
The tombstone is made of limestone and is 150 centimetres long. Its bas-relief depicts the figure of a knight in full armour: chainmail, tunic, leggings, and an escutcheon on his head. In his right hand he holds a sword with its crossed hilt projecting over his shoulder, and in his left hand he holds a shield. Such a gesture, according to medieval iconographic criteria, symbolised the power and privileged social status of the person buried under this slab. However, the lack of a surviving coat of arms on the shield makes it impossible to identify a specific figure, leaving researchers with room for further hypotheses, including a possible link between the burial site and the centre of princely power in the early 13th century.
The discovery of this unique slab is not the only breakthrough on the plot where the Miś ice cream parlour operated until a few years ago. Excavations as deep as five metres have uncovered the remains of the oldest wooden church on Polish soil, which is the oldest church in Gdansk in general. Dendrochronological research indicates that the building was erected in 1140. Analyses confirm that there was a medieval road here, consisting of several layers of wooden underlay, each laid after the previous one had worn away.
Within the limits of the excavations, an extensive cemetery was also encountered, whose origins date to the mid-12th century and whose last burials were carried out up to the 1420s. Dendrochronological dating indicates wooden coffins from periods after 1108, 1120, 1125 and 1154. The aforementioned use of wood secondarily, consisting of dozens of layers, testifies to the continuity of use of the site by successive generations of medieval inhabitants. Stories from the 1950s even speak of a road “paved with human skulls” discovered during sewage works in 1925, confirming a long tradition of burials in the area.
The uniqueness of medieval stone tombstones is due to their rarity – such monuments were only available to people of special social status. The excavation team stresses that finding such a sophisticated piece of stonework in one place, next to the oldest wooden church and the main roads of the settlement, testifies to the importance of this centre already at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. The Pomeranian Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments, Dariusz Chmielewski, decided to immediately secure the slab and transport it to a conservator’s workshop, as the limestone material quickly oxidises in contact with the air and easily degrades into powder.
Once the slab has been removed, researchers will begin analysing the layers of earth in which it rested to see if there is a burial with preserved human remains. Preliminary work is uncovering well-preserved fragments of wooden structures, giving hope for further discoveries. The research as a whole will make it possible not only to shed new light on the development and structure of early medieval Gdansk, but also to understand the social and urban transformations of the Pomeranian metropolis more than eight centuries ago.
source: Gdansk City Hall
Read also: Gdańsk | History | Interesting Facts | Featured | whiteMAD on Instagram
