Medieval Connections or More Likely Lack Thereof

It is interesting to note how the same symbols crop up in different contexts. To illustrate here are some samples from an article by Piotr Kotowicz.


Here is an axehead from Over Hornbæk in Denmark:

And here is a mason’s mark from Saint Peter’s collegiate church in Kruszwica, Poland (full disclosure: I flipped it to match 🙂 ):


Here is an axehead from Pień in Poland: 

And here is the “infamous” urn from Biała, Poland (3rd-4th century) that “proved” to the Nazis that their ancestors had beaten the Poles to, well, Poland (it was found by Poles pre-WWII):

Another similar motif appears on an urn from Wąchock:

Similar symbols were found in England (in this case, again, as masonry marks!) and on pottery as early as the Sintashta culture.


Now, part of the problem here is that these symbols are not exactly that difficult to come up with which means that they likely repeat themselves quite independently. Of course, the closer people live, the more likely it is that they will try to steal each other’s artistic ideas too. For these reasons, the “meaning” of these things might be entirely different depending on the location and time.

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June 7, 2019

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