SANOK, POLAND—The First News reports that archaeologists have identified the possible site of a fourteenth-century battle in a forest in southeastern Poland. In response to an increase in illegal treasure hunting around a medieval fortified settlement at Biała Góra in the Słonne Mountains, which was last excavated 50 years ago, a team led by Piotr Kotowicz of the Historical Museum in Sanok investigated the site and recovered more than 200 arrowheads and crossbow bolts dating to the mid-fourteenth century. Historical chronicles relate that in 1340 the Polish king Casimir the Great (r. 1310–1370) launched a campaign against Red Ruthenia, a region that now consists of parts of southeastern Poland and Ukraine. Casimir's 20,000-man army took several settlements around Biała Góra, and by 1344 had fully annexed Red Ruthenia into Poland. Kotowicz thinks the weapons found at the settlement mark the site of one of the campaign's battles. Nearby the team also unearthed traces of what appears to be an industrial settlement dating to the ninth or tenth century. To read about the recent discovery of burials of four medieval knights near the Polish village of Cieple, go to "Viking Knights, Polish Days."
