Archaeologists have discovered the first ever Celtic ritual lake site in Poland. The find, dated to the third century BC, has been described as “revolutionary” as it will require scholars to rethink the history of the Celts in what is now Poland.
The discovery was made by underwater archaeologists conducting research in the historic Kuyavia region of north-central Poland. In one of the lakes they searched, they found items (pictured above) including sickles, fragments of sword sheaths and chain belts on which weapons were hung.
The archaeologists note that the find is characteristic of Celtic ritual sites, where items such as weapons and tools were placed as offerings to deities in rivers, lakes and bogs as well as in hard-to-reach places such as mountains.
The lake where the discovery was made
“This is the first ritual lake site of the Celts in the lands of present-day Poland,” said Bartosz Kontny, dean of the faculty of archaeology at the University of Warsaw and head of the university’s underwater archaeology laboratory.
“The discovery is also revolutionary because no one expected the Celts this far north back in the third century BC,” Kontny added. Until now, it had been thought that Celtic settlements in present-day Poland reached the Kuyavia region only in the first century BC.
The Celts were an Indo-European people who spread to many parts of Europe at various stages, from the British Isles to the Carpathian Basin, and from the Iberian Peninsula to northern Italy, Silesia and the San river basin.
Unusual ancient burial mounds, used by two different cultures a thousand years apart, have been uncovered in northern Poland.
The site is believed to have been created almost 3,000 years ago by people of the Lusatian culture then later adopted by Goths https://t.co/hPtEZhF9P0
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 29, 2023
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Image credit: University of Warsaw
Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.
