VIII KONGRES MEDIEWISTÓW POLSKICH - GNIEZNO 2025
List of papers
Sacred places, cursed places. Petrosomatoglyphs from Poland against a European Background and Their Connection with Religion and Beliefs.
The lecture touches on the issue of the functioning of stones with carvings in folk religiosity and the formation of so-called miraculous places. In Poland, we can find several dozen stones with carvings in the shape of feet, less often hands or other body elements - so-called petrosomatoglyphs. In folk beliefs, they are a testimony to the presence of saints, the Mother of God or Jesus on earth. They are shrouded in a number of legends and tales and are the subject of local cult. They have been mentioned in written sources since the Middle Ages. Stones carved in the shape of a foot are known in Eastern and Western Europe, where they are interpreted differently as an expression of pre-Christian beliefs or representations related to the medieval pilgrimage movement.
Animals in the early medieval cremation funeral rite of the Slavs. A contribution to research on pre-Christian eschatological beliefs.
The lecture concerns the issue of the presence of animal remains in Slavic early medieval cremation burials from the area of present-day Poland. This issue is poorly researched, but it seems important for research on Slavic funeral customs and eschatological ideas. This phenomenon is recorded in Slavic cremation burials from the 6th/7th to the 13th century. Most graves with animal remains date from the 8th to the 10th century. The finds are dominated by the remains of breeding animals: mainly horses and cattle. In addition, the remains of pigs, sheep or goats, birds, dogs and cats have been recorded. The lecture will present a number of hypotheses concerning the interpretation of the phenomenon of the presence of animal bone remains in early medieval cremation graves, their symbolism and meaning.
