After the local government decided to build an observation tower on the sand dunes of Warin Island in the Baltic Sea, Polish archaeologists were hired to check the site before construction and look for the site’s eerie past deposits. called.
Hangman’s Hill, a public park, is believed by some to have been once an execution ground, cemetery and site of human sacrifice. Who knew what terrifying discoveries awaited?
But what archaeologist Wojciech Filipoviak found when he started excavating caused more excitement than disgust. Charred wood representing the remains of a 10th-century fortress that could help solve one of the great mysteries of the Viking age.
Were the formidable fortresses described in ancient documents a literary fantasy or a historical reality?
Over 1000 years ago, Norse warriors established outposts on Poland’s Baltic coast and enslaved Slavic natives to supply the burgeoning slave trade as well as trade in salt, amber and other commodities. It has long been known what he did.
However, the location of the largest Viking settlement in the region is unknown. Early 12th-century documents called the town and military stronghold Jomsborg, which may be associated with the mythical mercenary band known as the Jomsvikings.
Some modern scholars believe that Jomsborg never really existed, but is a legend that has been retold and embroidered through the ages. A discovery at Hangmens Hill on Warrin Island may change that view.
“It’s very interesting,” said Dr. Filipowiak, a Wolin scholar from the Archeology and Ethnology Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “It may solve a mystery dating back over 500 years: Where is Jomsborg?”
Interest in the Vikings, once largely confined to a niche of academic research, has seen television series, films, graphic novels and video games like “Game of Thrones” explore Norse themes, clothing and symbols. It has skyrocketed in recent years due to its acceptance and distorted adoption. The Viking age, or at least a rough approximation of it, has become a fixture in popular culture.
This is good news for the tourism industry in Garin City. “Vikings are sexy and attract a lot of attention,” said Ewa Grzybowska, mayor of the city of Wolin, which includes the town of the same name and the wider island district.
But the mayor lamented that far fewer tourists visit her territory than at nearby beach resorts. More funding is needed to conduct excavation work and develop Warin as a world-class destination for Viking researchers and amateur enthusiasts, she said.
“Everywhere you go here, you have a piece of history,” she said, pointing outside the town hall window to a square believed to contain a treasure trove of unexcavated early medieval relics.
However, its history has often been a source of discord.
Nazi archaeologists searched Wollyn, part of Germany until 1945, for evidence of Viking presence. He searched for evidence that the Nazis believed in the superiority of Nordic peoples and their superiority over the local Slavic peoples of the early Middle Ages. He later identified himself as Polish and claimed Polish lands.
When Poland took Wolin under control after World War II, Polish archaeologists found it useful to consolidate its hold on former German lands and strengthen its sense of national identity. I searched for relics.
Wolin’s school organized a reenactment of the Viking invasion of Poland’s Baltic coast, and in the decades after World War II, “far more children wanted to be the Slavs who guarded the islands.” says Karolina Kokora, director of the Historical Museum in Volyn.
Things have changed since Poland abandoned communism and began leaning west away from emphasizing Russian and Slavic pride. “After 1989, everyone wanted to be a Viking,” Kokora recalls.
Public fascination with the Vikings has also led to a surge in amateur historical research.
Among them is the controversial Polish-American amateur historian, who denounces Polish archeology as a quagmire of ethno-chauvinism and little recognition of the Vikings’ role in the early founding of Poland. There’s also Malek Krida, the author of the 2019 book that might be.
Klida sparked a storm of controversy in Poland last summer. published in the Daily Mail, British tabloids have reported discovering the tomb of Harald Bluetooth, the historic Danish Viking king who once ruled the area.
The consensus view among historians is that Harald probably died in the area at the end of the 10th century, but was buried in Denmark.
Marek said he used satellite imagery to pinpoint what he believed to be Harald’s grave in Viekowo, a small village inland from Wolin. Dr. Philippowiak dismissed it as “pseudoscience.”
Harald Bluetooth’s burial grounds turned the Viking king, who inspired the name for a wireless technology designed to unify warring Nordic territories and unite devices, into a pawn of tumultuous division. has changed.
Mayor Grzybowska added that she was not qualified to judge whether Harald was buried in her district, but she would be happy if it was true. “It will add a special splendor and grandeur to our island,” she said.
Grzybowska’s district is home to a Slavic and Viking village, dotted with thatched wooden huts and runic stones celebrating Harald Bluetooth. But while these are modern faux pas, representations of a distant Viking past that spark the imagination, despite decades of excavation by archaeologists in search of traces of the Jomsborg, they are certainly not. It was difficult to pin down.
The museum director, Ms. Kokora, describes this elusive 10th-century settlement as “medieval New York on the Baltic Sea,” a trading post with a mix of Vikings, Germanic and Slavic peoples, but curiously maps it. It was described as what was left behind. It only hints at its existence in ancient documents.
It is said to have had thousands of inhabitants, a fortress, and a long pier to accommodate Viking ships traveling to and from Scandinavia and North America. Traces of enslaved Slavs who were traded along the Baltic coast in the first millennium have been found thousands of miles away in Morocco.
As Kokora sifted through unearthed pottery shards on a cluttered table in the museum, she said the Vikings weren’t very interested or very good at making pottery. “They just took it from the Slavs,” she said.
In the 1930s, German archaeologists, wishing to refute the Polish claims that the area was originally settled mainly by Slavs, found traces of Jomsborg, as well as evidence of Scandinavian inhabitation. Excavated a mound on the other side of town from Hangmen Hill, hoping to find An important pillar of the Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy was there first. They found some artifacts, but no evidence of a Viking stronghold.
A portion of Hangmens Hill had been excavated before Dr. Philippowiak began excavating, but the area selected for construction had not been excavated. Archaeologists need further analysis of the serendipitous discovery of what they believe to be the walls of a 10th-century Jomsborg fortress, but they are already “80 percent certain” that this is the remains. said he believed.
The debate over Jomsborg’s location, or whether it really exists, is “a very long debate,” Dr Filipowiak said. “If possible, I would like to help you finish it.”
