Possible Medieval “Monk’s Well” Unearthed in Slovakia

News June 21, 2023

(Gemersko-Malohontské Museum)
SHARE:
Slovakia Monks Well Excavation
(Gemersko-Malohontské Museum)

RIMAVSKÁ SOBOTA, SLOVAKIA—The Slovak Spectator reports that fragments of Bronze Age and medieval pottery, the iron end of a thorn-tipped arrow, and a dam on what had been a rectangular pond were discovered during a recent investigation in southern Slovakia of an area close to the Rimava River that is covered with massive trees and known as Barát Kút, or Mníchova Studňa, which translates to Monk’s Well. Archaeologist Alexander Botoš of the Gemersko-Malohontské Museum thinks that traces of buildings may be found at the site. “Even on the basis of the findings so far, we can say that there was a settlement in the Bronze Age, the Early Middle Ages, as well as a defunct settlement in the Late Middle Ages,” he said. The dam has not yet been dated, but Botoš thinks it may have been part of a farm connected to a medieval Benedictine monastery in the nearby town. The study also recovered one piece of Roman pottery dated to the third or fourth centuries, which Botoš explained is the first such find in the region, and pottery dated to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To read about a burial with dozens of headless skeletons found in Slovakia, go to “Neolithic Mass Grave Mystery.”

  • Features May/June 2023

    The Man in the Middle

    How an ingenious royal official transformed Persian conquerors into proper Egyptian pharaohs

    Read Article
    (© The Trustees of the British Museum)
  • Letter from the American Southeast May/June 2023

    Spartans of the Lower Mississippi

    Unearthing evidence of defiance and resilience in the homeland of the Chickasaw

    Read Article
    (Kimberly Wescott and Brad Lieb, Chickasaw Native Explorers Program 2015)
  • Artifacts May/June 2023

    Greek Kylix Fragments

    Read Article
    (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)
  • Digs & Discoveries May/June 2023

    The Beauty of Bugs

    Read Article
    (Michael Terlep)