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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Police in Poland are searching for unknown perpetrators who appear to have found a hoard of over 100 Bronze Age objects during an illegal dig and then left them outside a local historical society. The items, which include 3,000-year-old jewellery and weapons, are now in the possession of the authorities.
“It is one of the biggest treasures found in Poland in recent years,” wrote the police, who believe that the items were located using metal detectors without the proper permission to carry out such a search.
They have filed a notification to prosecutors for the crimes of conducting a search without consent and of damaging historical objects at an archaeological site. If identified, the perpetrators could face up to eight years in prison.
Police were first made aware of the issue after photographs of the artefacts were sent by email to the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments (WUOZ) in the city of Szczecin in northwest Poland.
The people who had the items in their possession said that they had been left by unknown persons outside the offices of a local historical association in the nearby Gryfino region. The association has now handed over the entire find to WUOZ.
The hoard includes weapons, necklaces, shield bosses, sickles and spearheads, with items made from both bronze and silver. Once proceedings in the case are completed, WUOZ will determine where they should be housed.
But the police note that, because “the treasure was retrieved through illegal searches and then excavated from the ground”, that “completely loses the context of the find [and] makes further radiocarbon dating and establishing the circumstances under which the objects were hidden impossible”.
Police believe, based on photos passed around via email, that the perpetrators also discovered a clay jug, which they might have broken during the excavation and left at the site of the find.
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Image credit: Zachodnio Pomorska Policja (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
