Domniemany pochówek konia z Sukiennic

Abstrakt

PRESUMED BURIAL SITE OF A HORSE AT THE CLOTH HALL

The archaeological survey carried out at the cross and in the central section of the Cloth Hall resulted in documenting abundant deposits and objects dating back to the early and late medieval settlement. The earliest materials can be linked with the existence of a large hamlet situated on the northern outskirts of the Okół settlement outside the castle. The said hamlet existed probably from the 10th century, or the early 11th century, to the time when Kraków was granted the Town Charter. Another possible source of these oldest deposits can be the spacious burial ground located near the Church of St Adalbert before the Town Charter  1257, although the part of the cemetery that neighboured on the church could have been used until the 14th century. In the early medieval period the burial ground probably occupied the stretch of land running past the Cloth Hall from the exit of Św. Jana Street
to the building of the Great Scales and located between the Cloth Hall and the present roadway that encircles the plaza from the east. The excavations carried out in the western section of that area in 2010 revealed remains of a head and neck (skull and cervical vertebrae) of a horse, thus pointing to that location as the presumed burial site of the animal.
The documented skeletal remains of a horse were depositedabove the bottom of a hollow, at a depth of anywhere between 540 and 550 cm [17.7 to 18 ft] below the present surface of the hall, i.e. approximately 120 to 150 cm [3.9 to 4.9 ft] below the utility level in that area in the Early Middle Ages. The filling deposits around that object were composed of bedrock sand mixed with grey and grey-brown sandy formation. The deposits contained single calcareous stones, small amounts of fine-grained gravel and natural stone chips, as well as traces of charcoal and pug spots. Pieces of clayware dating back to the 11th and the early 12th centuries were unearthed as well. Th e roof of the object was topped with the layers of humus formed to surface thesite after the remains of the horse had been buried. Vast amounts of small pieces of clayware were found in these layers, including ceramics connected with the twilight of the Early Middle Ages and the dawn of the Late Middle Ages. These artefacts had been deposited during the period between the burial of the horse remains and the emergence of post-charter buildings in the area of Main Market Square. Based on the artefacts and the stratigraphic recognition of the site, the supposed burial of the horse is dated to the 11th century. Until recently, animal burial sites dating back to the Early or the Late Middle Ages were not found in the burial grounds and settlements excavated within the complex surrounding the castle in Kraków. However, several reports have been made so far about the discovery of the objects (burial sites?) containing human and animal bones. These were mostly accidental fi nds, and information about them was usually third-hand. Some of such objects were supposedly discovered near the Wawel Cathedral back in 1938; in the vaults of the SS Peter and Paul Church, located within the territory of the Okół settlement, in the years 1955–1956; as well as on the outskirts of the Kraków settlement complex at 3 Św. Jana St (in 1897). Nonetheless, the best known and the most controversial presumed burial site unearthed thus far has been the one discovered accidentally in the territory of the former village of Rakowice in the east of Kraków in 1928. The discovered deposit is said to have contained human bones and skeletal remains of a horse. Among the artefacts discovered allegedly in the vicinity (?) of these remains were diff erent iron items, including a sword from the 14th century, two hatchets, a spur, two horseshoes, four knives, three augers, and fragments of a harness. Yet it has not been established whether these artefacts actually came from a single burial site, and whether the bones were the remains of human
and horse skeletons. The skeletal remains found at the cross in the Cloth Hall neighboured on neither human remains nor any other items that would permit an interpretation and dating of that discovery.