Thousand-year-old wooden face sculpture found at bottom of Polish lake

A well-preserved, 1,000-year-old wooden sculpture of a human face has been discovered at the bottom of a lake in Poland. The archaeologists behind the find say that it “opens a fascinating discussion on the spiritual life of early medieval Slavs.”

This is “one of the most valuable artefacts we have found over the last 40 years of underwater research” at Lake Lednica in west-central Poland, says Andrzej Pydyn, director of the department of underwater archeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

Research began there in 1982, making it the longest-running archaeological site in Poland. The area was an important area of activity for the Piasts , Poland's first royal dynasty, which ruled from the 10th to the 14th century.

The latest find was part of a structural wooden beam that held together defensive ramparts. Only after bringing the object ashore did researchers notice that something had been carved into it – which turned out to be a 12-by-9-centimeter human face.

“When we cleaned it thoroughly, it turned out that a face was looking at us,” said Mateusz Popek, a member of the research team. “We never expected to discover something like this, even in our wildest dreams.”

Laboratory testing of the wood has led the researchers to estimate that it was cut around the year 967. The item will be shown to the public from next year as part of the permanent exhibition at the Museum of the Piasts in Lednica.

“The way the wood was worked and the expression of the face indicate that it was not a mere decoration,” wrote the team. It is possible that the representation had a symbolic meaning, representing a deity, protective spirit or hero guarding the inhabitants of the area.

They theorize that figurative anthropomorphic representations could have been more common in Slavic cultures than previously believed. However, such items have generally been lost to history as wood decomposes rapidly.

Other similar items have been found in the past near Saint Petersburg in Russia as well as at the Polish island of Wolin.

The face from the Lednica Lake most closely resembles the artifact from Wolin, further strengthening the assumption that it represents a local artistic and spiritual tradition, rather than the influence of Scandinavian or Ruthenian cultures.

Ostrów Lednicki, where the lake is located, occupies a special place in Polish history. Here, in the second half of the 10th century, Mieszko I, the first historically known ruler of Poland, built his stronghold that contained a palace with a chapel, where he possibly was baptized.

Main image credit: Kingaklos/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0 )