O krzemieniu skałkowym do broni ognistej w Podgórzu i Galicji pod koniec XVIII i w XIX wieku, część 2

Abstract

ON FIREARM FLINT IN PODGÓRZE AND GALICIA TOWARDS THE END OF THE 18^TH AND IN THE 19^TH CENTURIES, PART 2

The present paper is the continuation of Part 1,
published in the 36th volume of Krzysztofory. Scientific Bulletin of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków (2018), which discussed the beginnings of gunflint industry in Galicia at the turn of the 19^th century. The period of intensive gunflint production in Galicia lasted for several decades, from 1788 until the 1830s; in Podgórze it probably started in 1789. The use of flint in the production of flintlocks commissioned by the Austrian army was a subject addressed by geographer Franciszek  Siarczyński (1758–1829) in his writings. Interesting information about Galician flint was also passed on by Marc de Serres (1783–1862), an eminent French geologist and paleontologist who toured around Galicia in 1809; the latter scholar mentioned the town of Podgórze (currently a district within the city of Krakow), as a site where flint was being mined in large amounts. In Galicia the production of flintlock strikers concentrated around two flintbearing centres, i.e. in the eastern,  and in the western parts of the province. The former area  stretched over Podolia, encompassing factories in Nyzhniv and Berezhany. In this region firearm flint was obtained in the Berezhany circle (in the vicinity of Berezhany), in the Chortkiv circle (near Zalishchyki), and in the  Stanyslaviv circle (near Maryampol, Nyzhniv, Tlumach,  Nezvysko, and the areas located by the River Zbruch).  The latter flintbrearing area was located in western Galicia, in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland where gunflints  were manufactured in Bielany (currently a part of the City  of Kraków), in Dębnik near Krzeszowice, in Paczółtowice (a village now incorporated into the municipality of  Krzeszowice), in Zelków and Aleksandrowice (in the rural commune of Zabierzów), in Morawica, Piekary and  Mników (in the rural commune of Liszki), in Ojców (in  the municipality of Skała), in Zagacie (in the rural commune of Czernichów), in Bębło and Wielka Wieś (in the  rural commune of Wielka Wieś), in Kwaczała (in the municipality of Alwernia), in Sąspów (in the rural commune  of Jerzmanowice-Przeginia), and in Podgórze (currently  a part of the City of Kraków). In the first half of the 19th century Podgórze achieved particular fame and popularity  boasting rich deposits of top quality ‘firearm flint’ which  was used in the production of flintlock strikers – an industry that also developed in that area. In the 1870s traces of past gunflint production were  encountered by ethnographer and archaeologist Zygmunt Gloger (1845–1910) during his exploration of the area. Attracted by his discoveries, Gloger became the first scholar who attempted to show the differences between Stone Age flint tools and 19th-century flint artefacts (as well as by-products of gunflint manufacture). Piotr Umiński (1830–1906) and Jan Nepomucen Sadowski (1814–1897) wrote about the gunflint industry centres in Morawica – a location where they had discovered traces of this kind of production, while archaeologist Adam Honory Kirkor (1818–1886) reported on the continuation of gunflint manufacturing in the neighbouring villages of Mników and Morawica up until 1876. In the 1950s gunflint shops dating from the 18^th and the 19^th centuries were discovered in Zelków. In their final years, the workshops would manufacture flints for fire strikers, and the production stopped altogether around 1880.