Like pretty much any other field of science, archaeology can be frightening beyond belief sometimes. But it is totally worth the risk if we ask archaeologists. During a recent expedition in Poland, researchers lead by Dr Jadwiga Lewandowska of the Dobrzyn Land Museum in Rypin, were surprised and terrified to find what a Christian cemetery from the 11th century was hiding.
The researchers uncovered the skeletons of women and children buried in unusual ways in 30 graves from the Dobrzyn Land (northern Poland).
Odd religious ritual?
Judging by the odd ways that the corpses were buried, there’s a chance that they could have been taking part in a religious ritual. For instance, the corpse of a woman was buried on her side in the foetal position, another one had a boulder on her chest, and so on. The Christian faith doesn’t imply such peculiar practices, but who knows what ‘great’ ideas people had a millennium ago.
An even more gruesome aspect of the discovery is that the majority of the bodies found at the site were of children aged two-and-a-half to four-years-old. The Christian faith promotes love and mercy, not burial absurdities.
Professor Krzysztof Szostka from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, declared:
“What is interesting, it was in this grave that we found probably the most beautiful necklace we have so far been able to find at the cemetery.”
Dr Lewandowska declared: “The wealth of the deceased’s items surprised us.”
The 30 newfound graves are part of a necropolis that’s believed to cover about five acres of land. Also, the discovery provides even further evidence that Poland adopted Christianity earlier than the mid-11th century. Officially, the country adopted the Christian faith since the year 966, when it made the transition from paganism.
