A huge tomb, created from multi-ton stones more than 6 thousand years ago, began to be investigated by Polish archaeologists. Scientists have known about the existence of this ancient burial, which is now located on the territory of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland in the Dolice area, for about a century, but until now no one dared to carry out excavations in this place.
The tomb in Dolice is sometimes called the Polish pyramid due to its monumental size. It is an elongated triangle over 70 m long and 2 m high, lined with rough stones, most of which weigh several tons.
Archaeologists began excavations in August. Previously, scientists were convinced that the tomb was poorly preserved. However, even the first studies have shown that this is not the case. After removing several layers of the earth, it turned out that many stones have been in their places for several millennia.
“This level of preservation surprised us all very much,” said the project manager Agnieszka Matuszewska from the Department of Archeology at the University of Szczecin. “The tomb was not destroyed, but was simply covered with layers of earth,” the Polish Press Agency quotes her as saying.
The researchers suggest that there is a burial in the wide part of the tomb. His search is planned for next year. There is also a version that after the funeral, huge stones were made from above, which were covered with earth, and only then smaller cobblestones were added to the top of this structure, which gave the impression that the entire mountain was made of stone. “She probably made an impression, as at the highest point it reached a height of 2 meters,” Matushevskaya noted.
According to her, this tomb was erected by representatives of the so-called funnel beaker culture of the late Neolithic era. It is assumed that in this way they honored some high-ranking foreman, tribal or clan chief.
Having appreciated the value of this tomb at its true worth, scientists, using an aircraft laser scanner, explored the surrounding area, discovering several more similar structures, the existence of which was not previously known. The new finds in Dolice are also planned to be made part of the open-air archaeological museum and to be included in the route of the European megalithic trail.
Polish megalithic structures survived exclusively in the forests, where they managed to avoid destruction for several millennia. The most famous Polish pyramids of antiquity can be seen in the West Pomeranian region, where they were restored to their original form after careful research. These constructions are considered to be a manifestation of the general European tendency to create huge structures from monumental stone blocks in the V-III millennia BC, the most striking example of which is the British Stonehenge.
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