The octagonal tower at castle Ojców : a commemorative realisation of king Kasimir III the Great?

The octagonal tower of the ruined castle Ojców (southern Poland) is considered one of the most impressive foundations of king Kasimir III the Great (†1370). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the results of archaeological dig carried out in 2016 and to combine it with written evidence to form the basis for the reconstruction of its long-gone past. The tower is an octagon in plan, has 11.55 m in diameter and has walls that are ca. 2.7-2.8 m thick. On the inside it is round, 6.2 m in diameter. It was built of carefully processed hewn limestone set in lime mortar and what is important to note, it is the only known castle tower realisation of king Kasimir which was built on such blocks. On the other hand, the raw material used for building the tower has close affinities with church foundations of the king (e.g. in the collegiate church in Wiślica). Noteworthy, the fieldwork of 2016 provided rich assemblage of architectural details, including stylistically homogenous window or portal framings with characteristic pear-shaped mouldings and hollow-chamferred profiles, which likely relate to the earliest stages of the castle, perhaps already to the realisation of king Kasimir. There is a high degree of confidence that these elements were originally placed in the tower, and, if so, they determined rich and representative design of the whole structure. According to the author of the paper, there are strong indications that the impressive octagonal tower which is distinguished among the other contemporary defensive realisations by its building material, size and, possibly, a decor, was built as a commemorative realisation, given to honour the memory of the father of king Kasimir – Władysław the Elbow-high, who according to the local tradition, early in the 14th c. found a refuge in a cave located nearby (note the castle’s name: Oczecz − further Ojców − in Polish means Father). Last but not least, the archaeological dig brought to light the remains of an undefined building from the late 15th-mid 16th c. west from the tower, the remains of post-medieval (17th c.?) wall adjacent to the tower from the north, and some important stratigraphic observations, which allow to state that the octagonal structure witnessed some extensive restoration work in the second half of the 15th c

Medieval and post-medieval archaeological heritage in Polish caves and the problems of its protection

This paper discusses cave use in Poland during medieval and post-medieval periods, focussing on the Cracow Upland in particular. The purpose is to try to provide a short overview of the medieval and post-medieval material culture in Polish caves through the lens of functions played by caves in historical periods (domestic occupation, workshop usage, storage, hideaways in times of unrest, use of caves for funeral purposes), and to indicate present-day threats to the archaeological records in our caves, relating mostly to the unprofessional speleological activities

The heraldic mount from Ciemna Cave at Ojców : from studies in the medieval culture of chivalry

The focus of the article is analysis of a mount in the form of an heraldic escutcheon from the archaeological excavation of Ciemna Cave at Ojców, powiat Kraków, Poland. The shape of the mount appears to be that of a medieval European heater shield, with a maximum length of 3.9 cm and three rivets for attachment. Non-destructive metallograpy analysis established its material as copper (with traces of lead and arsenic) and the presence of a thin layer of tin on the outer face of the mount, the tin layer now largely eroded. The rivets are presumably copper too. The design, in repoussé and engraving, presumably is modelled on heraldic devices: the field halved vertically (party per pale), the dexter field with horizontal bars (barry), the sinister field with diagonal bars (bendy). The design seen on the mount could not be attributed to any concrete coat-of-arms. The mount from Ciemna Cave was found to have a series of analogies, mainly from Central and Western Europe, most notably, in a deposit from Felsőszentkirály in Hungary with fittings similar in their decoration and execution method to the find from Ciemna Cave. Drawing on insights afforded by some of its analogies the author proposes to interpret the mount from Ciemna Cave as an element from a knight’s belt. This view is supported by the discovery during the archaeological investigation of Ciemna Cave of another medieval belt fitting. The heraldic mount from Ciemna Cave may be dated, drawing on the chronology of its analogies and that of the rest of the medieval finds inventory from the cave, to the second half of the thirteenth-fourteenth century. It is not impossible that the mount from Ciemna cave (similarly as “military” artefacts recovered from the caves of Kraków–Częstochowa Upland) is a material reflection of the Legend of Ojców — an account on how Duke Władysław the Elbow-High found shelter in the caves of the region, still alive today

Inscriptions on walls of Złodziejska Cave in Ojców : a contribution to the study of tourism history in the vicinity of Ojców

he purpose of our paper is to present the results of an analysis of tourists inscriptions that have been found on walls of Złodziejska Cave. The site is located in Sąspów Valley, in the southern part of the Polish Cracow-Częstochowa Upland. Overall, 205 inscriptions were found and documented. Inscrip-tions were written in pencil, pen or carved on the wall with something sharp. They included names, surna-mes, places of origin, dates, or sometimes only initials. Since many of them included dates, it was possible to trace changes in touristic activity in Ojców and within the cave. The majority of inscriptions were made at the beginning of the 20th century (1905–1914), which coincides with the rise of popularity of the resort in Ojców. Not without meaning appear to be a road that passed then close to the cave and made Złodziejska Cave easily accessible. The second peak of cave popularity started after the First World War and ended in 1928, when a new road to Ojców, leading through Brama Krakowska, had been opened. This coincided with decreasing popularity of the health resort in Ojcó

The girl with finches : a unique post-medieval burial in Tunel Wielki Cave, southern Poland

Cave burials are generally absent from historical periods in Europe. Consequently, the discovery of a post-medieval inhumation of a child buried with at least one bird head placed in the mouth in Tunel Wielki Cave (southern Poland) is an exceptional find. The aim of this paper is to discuss this unique burial based on multiproxy analyses conducted on the human and avian remains, including genetic and isotopic analyses as well as CT scans, radiocarbon dating, and anthropological and paleontological assessment. The results reveal the burial was that of a 10-12 year old girl of likely Fennoscandian or Baltic genetic ancestry, who died in the post-medieval period and was buried in the cave with the placement of one, and possibly two, bird heads in the mouth of the deceased. We propose that the girl is associated with Finno-Karelian troops of a Swedish garrison stationed at the adjacent Ojcow Castle during King Carl Gustav's invasion of Poland in 1655-1657.Peer reviewe

Ancestors of domestic cats in Neolithic Central Europe : isotopic evidence of a synanthropic diet

Cat remains from Poland dated to 4,200 to 2,300 y BCE are currently the earliest evidence for the migration of the Near Eastern cat (NE cat), the ancestor of domestic cats, into Central Europe. This early immigration preceded the known establishment of housecat populations in the region by around 3,000 y. One hypothesis assumed that NE cats followed the migration of early farmers as synanthropes. In this study, we analyze the stable isotopes in six samples of Late Neolithic NE cat bones and further 34 of the associated fauna, including the European wildcat. We approximate the diet and trophic ecology of Late Neolithic felids in a broad context of contemporary wild and domestic animals and humans. In addition, we compared the ecology of Late Neolithic NE cats with the earliest domestic cats known from the territory of Poland, dating to the Roman Period. Our results reveal that human agricultural activity during the Late Neolithic had already impacted the isotopic signature of rodents in the ecosystem. These synanthropic pests constituted a significant proportion of the NE cat’s diet. Our interpretation is that Late Neolithic NE cats were opportunistic synanthropes, most probably free-living individuals (i.e., not directly relying on a human food supply). We explore niche partitioning between studied NE cats and the contemporary native European wildcats. We find only minor differences between the isotopic ecology of both these taxa. We conclude that, after the appearance of the NE cat, both felid taxa shared the ecological niches

Tracing ephemeral human occupation through archaeological, palaeoenvironmental and molecular proxies at Łabajowa Cave

Confirming ephemeral human occupation is a crucial issue in cave archaeology. The project ‘Tracing human presence in caves of Polish Jura’ focuses on the application of molecular methods to decode the history of past human activities in cave sediments in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland. The results will be compared with archaeological and palaeoecological proxies