Medieval Knight ‘Lancelot’ and His Stunning Stone Tomb Found in Poland
Archaeologists found the body of a medieval knight underneath a tombstone that depicted him in full military regalia.
Archaeologists were surprised to discover the exceptional tomb of a medieval knight underneath an ice cream shop in the seaside Polish city of Gdańsk. The 13th-century burial includes a rare carving that probably depicts the knight himself.
“We discovered a large limestone tomb slab carved with the image of a knight in full chainmail armor,” Sylwia Kurzyńska, an archaeologist with ArcheoScan who co-directed the excavation, told Live Science in an email. The carved slab is rare in medieval Poland because “only a few featured images of the deceased,” she said.
Kurzyńska and her team found the monument in the historic center of Gdańsk in July, when they were excavating the grounds of a stronghold used from the 11th to the 14th centuries. Within the stronghold were the remains of a castle, a church and a cemetery.
The carved tombstone has been preliminarily dated to the late 13th or early 14th century, Kurzyńska said. Roughly 59 inches (150 centimeters) long and made out of limestone imported from Gotland, Sweden, the slab shows a man standing upright in full armor and holding a sword and a shield.
“Given that it was made out of soft limestone and lay buried for centuries,” Kurzyńska said, “the preservation of the slab is remarkable — the carving, the armor and the shield are still well-defined.”
Shortly after their discovery of the slab, the ArcheoScan team removed the stone and dug deeper. They found a well-preserved male skeleton but no grave goods.
Source: Medieval Knight ‘Lancelot’ and His Stunning Stone Tomb Found in Poland
3 Million Years of Instruments Proves The Ancestors of Modern People Know to Strategic Think
3 Million Years of Instruments Proves The Ancestors of Modern People Know to Strategic Think
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