Panemunės pilis ir jos aplinka

Abstract

Together with the animal bones and mass-produced finds, i.e. stove tile fragments, blackware sherds, and glass shards, they allow us to have a much more detailed image of life in the castle. In implementing the project, Adapting Panemunė Castle and the Surrounding Park to Public Cultural Tourism, in 2011, a great deal of earthwork, which required field surveys and evaluations, was foreseen inside Panemunė Castle and in its vicinity (jurbarkas District, Skirsnemunė eldership, Pilis I village). The entire work area was over 3500 m², including the detailed investigation of about 2000 m². The excavations were conducted in three stages (Fig. 1). After studying the entire cultural layer of the castle yard and making a stratigraphic section across it, it was discovered that a gravelly, sandy, and clayey oblong hill with a natural spring (in the SW part of the yard) and a gentle slope on the S side had been selected for the castle site. This circumstance was used practically, i.e. no very deep trenches needed to be dug for the foundations of the S building. During construction, the slope was levelled using various construction waste. The aquiferous vein near the surface in the SW part of the yard was probably used for a well. Two paving fragments were discovered. The first was found at a depth of 16–20 cm from the present-day surface at the site of the trench running near the S building and on the edge near the junction of the E and S buildings and near the N building at roughly its middle. The second (a gutter sloping down to the S) was unearthed at the abutting corners of the E and S buildings at a depth of 50 cm and at the edge of the S building (Fig. 2), closer to the W building. The stones of this paving were bigger and laid on a layer of clean whitish sand up to 15 cm thick. This paving should be connected with the mid-17th-century reconstruction of the palace when the S building became the centre. It is very likely that the yard was never completely paved and had probably been paved only at the some of the more important and more intensely used places. After studying the entire castle yard, the site’s chronology was revised. The end scraper (Fig. 8) found on the surface of the sterile soil shows that the locality was already in use in the Stone Age. Other finds reflect all of the stages of history from the 16th (fragments of panel stove tiles (Blattkacheln)) to the 21st century (lost coins and other objects on the surface). The Roman Gordian III (238–244) coin found in the layer of mortar and brick rubble should be considered an artefact that found its way there by accident (Fig. 9). The biggest find group consists of animal bones, almost 14 thousand of which were collected. Game animals predominate, bird bones being rarer, while only isolated antlers were found. The second find group consists of household blackware. These are mostly small sherds unevenly distributed on the yard’s grounds. A larger accumulation of potsherds with glazed pitcher pieces (Fig. 4) and singularly decorated blackware sherds was near the entrance to the NW tower. Stove tile (Figs. 10–12) fragments were encountered in greater quantities only in the yard’s central and W parts. many various-sized handmade bottle and small thin flat glass shards were found. The most intense period of the castle’s life (17th – early 18th centuries) is attested to by a few individual finds (Figs. 3, 5–7) and coins: Rīga Sigismund III Vasa shillings (1604, 16??); GDL Sigismund III Vasa double denars (1620); a Prussian George William threehalfgroat (1622); a Kingdom of Prussia Gustavus Adolphus threehalfgroat (1624); GDL john II Casimir shillings (1664 (4 coins), 1665, 1666); a Polish john II Casimir shilling (?), a counterfeit john II Casimir shilling (?); a Prussian Frederick the Great groat (176?); and a Prussian Frederick William III threegroat (1800).