Bathys Rhyax was a cult place near Constantinople dedicated to St. Theodore. Two artefacts associated with the site depict the saint, and bear inscriptions that confirm their connection to Bathys Rhyax. The first is an enamelled plaque dating from the 12th–13th centuries which is kept in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. The second is a lead seal dating from the second half of the 12th century in the collection of the Numismatic Museum in Athens. The images on these artefacts adhere to the Eastern European canon for depicting the Saint. It cannot be ruled out that the sanctuary at Bathys Rhyax may have played a role in the dissemination of the iconography and the cult of St. Theodore in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 13th century. The depiction on the lead seals of the Rurikid princes of the Suzdal dynasty has received a new interpretation as an echo of the iconography of Bathys Rhyax. However, our knowledge of Bathys Rhyax, including the as yet undetermined and disputed location derived from written sources, is negligible. Although the first analyses of the image of St. Theodore from Bathys Rhyax in the context of iconographic representations from Eastern Europe took place almost a hundred years ago, the subject has not been discussed for many decades. Interest in this centre has recently been renewed in connection with research conducted by art historians, as well as the results of the latest archaeological research being carried out in the suburbs of Istanbul on the Firuzköy peninsula. There, a building has been excavated that is believed to be the martyrion of St. Theodore, as well as two rings that are also associated with the cult of this saint. Another ongoing topic of discussion is which of the many saints named Theodore is depicted on the monuments associated with Bathys Rhyax. The article also examines the possible influence of Christian art from the Holy Land on the iconography of St. Theodore as a Holy Rider.
A pair of seventeenth-century woollen, five-fingered mittens discovered at site 577 in Toruń constitutes an artefact of exceptional significance for the study of the history of knitting. This is the first fully preserved pair of knitted gloves of this type recovered during archaeological excavations in Poland. Previous research had identified only isolated and fragmentarily preserved knitted remains, the original function of which could not always be determined with certainty. The Toruń find thus fills a significant gap in the archaeological record, confirming both the high level of knitting skill and the presence of such products within the material culture of the early modern urban environment.
The article discusses an unusual collective find from Bukówko (Białogard County), discovered in 2023 during archaeological research on a medieval knightly residence. The assemblage consists of 121 small coins (mainly 1-2 pfennigs) and 23 metal objects, including a unique badge inscribed “Amtsdiener u. Executor des Amtsbezirks Kreis Bublitz”. The chronology (including Polish coins from 1949) and the context indicate this is a deposit of looted items after 1949, interpreted as material evidence of post-War looting.
In April 1870, Heinrich Schliemann first put his shovel into the Hisarlik mound, beginning one of the most famous excavations of the 19th century. Among the participants of the fifth season of fieldwork was also a Polish engineer, Marcel Teofil Górkiewicz (1835-1910). He supervised excavations on mounds near the main site. The article aims to present and briefly summarise ten letters written between 1878 and 1882 by Górkiewicz to his employer, the explorer of Troy. They not only show the stages of their acquaintance and cooperation, but also shed new light on the Polish engineer’s contribution to the development of excavation methods at the site during the important period of the birth of scientific archaeology.
