SANDOMIERZ, POLAND—An early eleventh-century wooden chamber tomb containing the remains of an elite warrior has been unearthed in southwestern Poland. Science in Poland reports that archaeologists discovered a number of artifacts in the grave, including ceramic vessels, a silver ring, and an iron knife, among other objects. "It should be also noted that the vessels discovered in the grave, which probably contained food and drinks, as well as other objects, clearly indicate that we are dealing with burials of people that either were still pagans, or were formally baptized, but cultivated certain pagan traditions in funeral rituals,” said Maria Curie-Skłodowska University archaeologist Marek Florek, who suspects the warrior was a foreigner. Around the tomb, Florek’s team found a number of smaller, contemporaneous graves containing wooden coffins. In one, the deceased was buried with a bronze Baltic clasp of a type that was popular in Russia between the ninth and eleventh centuries. To read about the early medieval period in the Baltic, go to "The First Vikings."
