POZNAŃ, POLAND—Artnet News reports that a kitchen dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century has been found in the basement of The Museum of Applied Arts in Poznań by researchers from Adam Mickiewicz University. The room measures about 10 feet wide by 16 feet long. The structure was first built as a castle in 1249 by Duke Przemysł I with a tower and square surrounded by a rampart, but was burned, sacked, and rebuilt over time. A Gothic pillar in the basement room, measuring about nine feet wide by 11 feet long, held the royal kitchen’s stove and acted as a hood to filter exhaust and gases. Historical sources indicate that a well had been dug in one corner of the room. The researchers will look for the well next, which is expected to rest under about six feet of rubble. An excavation conducted in the castle’s former courtyard uncovered sixteenth-century pottery, animal bones, and fragments of tile from the castle’s heating system. To read about clay figurines found at a Bronze Age hillfort in Poland, go to "Piggy Playthings."
