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The discovery of a 10th-century cemetery containing around 20 skeletons has raised speculation that those there buried were warriors who served the country’s first ruler, Mieszko I.
The burial site was found earlier this year in the village of Borkowo, near the town of Inowrocław in central Poland, during work to build a gas pipeline by energy firm Polska Spółka Gazownictwa. The find was reported to the provincial office for the protection of monuments, which dispatched a team of archaeologists to investigate.
“This is a phenomenal discovery,” Piotr Alagierski, who led the archaeological work, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily. If preliminary results are confirmed, it would represent the first mass burial site from this period found in Poland and “would be unique in Europe”, he added.
“Mass burials from this period are practically nonexistent. We usually find individual remains…Here we have a complete scene,” said the archaeologist.
Moreover, “it is very rare in archaeology to have the luxury of connecting a cemetery with the place where the people buried there lived,” he added. “Here, not only do we know that there’s a stronghold nearby, but the findings from the cemetery confirm that the deceased were definitely connected to this settlement.”
Previous archaeological work and aerial photography have revealed that a circular stronghold that functioned around the 9th and 10th centuries was located nearby.
At the newly discovered burial site, the remains of around 20 people have been found and dated to the 10th century. Alagierski notes that this was the time when Christianity was being introduced in Poland and the burials show signs of Christian practices mixing with old pagan traditions.
“It’s a turning point, a complete cultural shift,” said Alagierski. “There was already a belief that the bodies of the deceased could not be burned, that they had to be placed in a grave in an inhumation, but the pagan impulse to place weapons, gifts and ornaments with the body remained.”
Gazeta Wyborcza also speculates as to whether the men buried at the site could have been from one of the divisions of warriors (pictured above in an artist’s impression) employed by Mieszko I.
They were described by the famous 10th-century traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, whose work provided the first reliable description of the Polish state founded by Mieszko I, who was duke of Poland from 960 until his death in 992.
Aragielski notes that, whereas the female skeletons found at the burial site are of average size for the period, the male ones are much taller and more well built than average. One was buried with arrowheads, others with battle axes, while one’s bones showed signs typical of extremely regular horse riding.
The presence of jewellery made from silver and imported stones also indicates that “this was not an average community”, says Alagierski, adding that “the entire warrior elite of the time lived at a very high standard”.
A well-preserved, 1,000-year-old wooden sculpture of a human face has been discovered at the bottom of a lake in Poland.
The archaeologists behind the find say that it "opens a fascinating discussion on the spiritual life of early medieval Slavs" https://t.co/9TbZBn7qVS
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 12, 2025
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.
Main image credit: SebbeKg/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
