Divers Excavated a Lake—and Stumbled Upon a Haunting Historic Face

Right here’s what you’ll study if you learn this story:

Underwater archaeologists found a wood face that dates again greater than 1,000 years.

Specialists say the face might have been used to keep off evil spirits from the settlement.

Comparable carvings have been found in different Slavic cities, suggesting a bigger non secular observe in medieval Slavic life.

Many historic wood constructions have been misplaced to time, as wooden sadly decomposes shortly. Nonetheless, water can act as a time capsule—in completely anaerobic wetland or underwater situations, wooden can survive for hundreds of years. And just lately, archaeologists from Nicolaus Copernicus College (NCU) found a putting instance of that preservation—a 1,000-year-old wood face throughout an underwater analysis expedition.

In 2024, scientists from NCU’s Heart for Underwater Archaeology and the Museum of the First Piasts in Lednica discovered the face submerged in Poland’s Lake Lednica. The workforce just lately offered its findings at a press convention.

The face was carved onto a wood structural beam known as a hook. In keeping with a press launch from NCU, the carving measured 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) tall and 9 (3.5 inches) centimeters vast, and options intricate particulars together with sensible eyes, nostril, mouth, and oval-shaped head. The wooden was additionally marked with the quantity 353.

Specialists estimate that the tree from which the face (and beam) have been carved the face’s tree fell within the 12 months 967, which means the carving has seemingly existed for over a millennium. This was across the similar time that the founding father of the Polish state, Mieszko I, was baptized, and Poland shifted right into a state of Christian assimilation.

This isn’t the primary face of its type to be found. Comparable depictions have been present in different Slavic cities together with Wolin, Novgorod the Nice, and Staraya Ladoga. In keeping with specialists, consistencies between these finds counsel that the beam discovered at Lednica displays an area inventive and non secular custom, relatively than Scandinavian or Rus affect. Briefly, the latest discovery is only one piece within the bigger puzzle of medieval Slavic life.

“This discovery not solely evokes admiration for the craftsmanship from over a thousand years in the past but in addition opens an enchanting dialogue concerning the non secular lifetime of early medieval Slavs,” Andrzej Pydyn, director of the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at NCU, mentioned within the press launch.

Specialists counsel the beam on which the face was engraved served as a part of the settlement’s defensive rampart—and its objective might have gone far past simply structure. The fashion of woodworking means that the face had mystical which means, and certain depicted a deity, protecting spirit, or hero watching over inhabitants of the world.

Different proof helps the concept of the being a part of the non secular practices of medieval Slavic society. The researchers additionally found horse jaws and bones round ramparts, which can have come from ritual choices or protecting sacrifices, Mateusz Popek from NCU mentioned. The workforce additionally discovered related bones beneath homes.

“The [wood] face is a priceless monument and a uncommon instance of an merchandise combining utility and symbolic capabilities,” a put up from the Museum of the First Piasts in Lednica reads. “The invention from Lake Lednica not solely impresses, but in addition opens new questions concerning the life, tradition and spirituality of the inhabitants of those lands from over a thousand years in the past.”