Published: 2018-01-01

The supposed cemetery of Evangelicals and Mennonites in Pień in the light of excavations

Dariusz Poliński

Abstract

The burial ground (site 9) in the village of Pień, located in the western part of the Chełm region, is a remnant of an early-modern cemetery. The graves have not been unambiguously identified as representing a particular denomination but it was probably a Protestant cemetery. Rescue excavations in this site were conducted in 2005–2009. The necropolis was used in the early Middle Ages and in the early modern period, probably from the end of the 16th, possibly even to the turn of the 19th c. The article presents the major results of the research on the mod-ern-period phase, including interpretations of some of the burial rituals that were traced, potentially helpful in verifying the thesis that the cemetery was an evangelical one. This research has not provided grounds to attribute the cemetery unambiguously to a particular religious group. Some features, however, especially the lack of devotional items, indicate that it was a burial ground for Protestants (evangelicals) or perhaps even Mennonites. The issue of the presence of Dutch immigrants and Mennonites in that area and of their supposed burials in Pień requires further detailed research, in particular a survey of written sources. Despite this crucial problem, the results obtained so far enrich the picture of early-modern-period burial rituals in the Polish countryside and may contribute significantly to the development of the so-called archaeology of Protestantism, one of the new trends in Polish archaeology. 

Keywords:

Pień, cementery, sources, protestants, archaeology, modern times

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Poliński, D. (2018). The supposed cemetery of Evangelicals and Mennonites in Pień in the light of excavations. Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej, 66(3), 289–307. Retrieved from https://journals.iaepan.pl/khkm/article/view/1017

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