Lost Medieval Town Found in Polish Forest

Archaeologists scouring a Polish forest say they've finally tracked down a medieval town that vanished from the map centuries ago. Using old documents, maps, fieldwork, and a recent geophysical survey, researchers with the Relicta Foundation have identified massive earthworks and an 18-foot-deep moat as the long-lost town of Stolzenberg, near today's village of Slawoborze in a region of northwest Poland long contested with Germany, Fox News reports. Magnetic scans show traces of buildings arranged around a rectangular central square and along a main street toward a city gate—an urban layout typical of towns founded under medieval German law.

More than 400 artifacts have turned up so far, from Bronze Age objects to World War II-era containers still holding meat and butter. The key finds for dating Stolzenberg's heyday include medieval silver coins, clothing hardware, tools, and, most dramatically, cannon grenade fragments and lead bullets tied to a 1761 battle between Russian and Prussian forces in the Seven Years' War. Most finds, however, date to centuries before the war. "The decline may have occurred in the 14th or 15th century," says archaeologist Marcin Krzepkowski. "This site is a true time capsule, harboring many mysteries."

Why the town was abandoned remains unclear. "Usually more than one factor contributes to the decline of a town," Krzepkowski says, per TVP World. "Sometimes natural causes such as flooding or changes in transport routes reduce a town's activity, leading to the collapse of trade and crafts and the impoverishment of its residents. Sometimes these are military events, wars, or invasions." He says some urban plots were apparently undeveloped, suggesting "that the town fell at a relatively early stage, and its entire planned area was not developed."