The pyramids are associated with the desert landscape of Egypt or the jungle of Central America. However, to see the oldest of them, we don't have to go on an exotic trip. Stone age tombs, known as the "Polish pyramids", can be found in Kujawy and Greater Poland. It's not everything. Amateurs of Egyptology ordered tombs with a characteristic shape to be erected in several noble estates. Here are stories related to the Polish pyramids and tips on where to find them.
Prehistoric tombs in Kujawy and Greater Poland
Why the pyramids?
The tombs from 5500 years ago, known as the Polish pyramids, can be seen in Gaj Stolarski, Wietrzychowice, and Sarnów in Kujawy. Looking at the small hills, today's tourists may not see the resemblance to the monuments of ancient Egypt. Is the term "Polish pyramids" just a trick intended to attract tourists? Not necessarily. Although after years of extracting stone from them and growing overgrown by forest vegetation, the native tombs do not resemble the pyramids, they have many features in common with Egyptian buildings.
Kujawy-type tombs were built in the shape of an elongated triangle. They were raised from the ground and reinforced with stone blocks. Buildings are oriented east-west. Although they look much more modest than the works of Egyptian architects, they can testify to the fairly developed culture of the local inhabitants. They probably had to use simple levers, for sure a good organization of work was needed. Orientation according to the directions of the world suggests that it had some customary or ritual significance.
Buildings and their builders
As I mentioned, the Polish pyramids were made of earth and reinforced with stone blocks. Their height is 3 meters (according to some sources, up to 5 meters). The most impressive is its width (approx. 10 m) and length (approx. 100 m).
Particularly important representatives of the community of that time were buried in the tombs. Most often men, although archaeologists also discovered the tomb of a 70-year-old woman.
We still don't know much about the builders of the Polish pyramids from 5500 years ago. Recently, their settlements were discovered using drones. They probably dealt mainly with cattle herding and only to a small extent with agriculture. It is still a mystery where ordinary representatives of this culture were buried.
Archaeologists count the builders of megalithic tombs to the so-called Funnelbeaker culture. Its representatives produced high-quality ceramic vessels, bone and flint tools. (Czekaj-Zastawy A. et al., 2013: pp. 197-198) Unfortunately, we do not know the culture of that period in detail yet, and tourists are left to admire the tombs and excavated artifacts. The rest must complete your imagination.
The Pyramids of Greater Poland
When talking about the prehistoric pyramids in Poland, it is impossible not to mention the so-called Greater Poland pyramids. They are much younger than the Kujawy tombs and slightly younger than the Great Pyramid of Giza. They were created in the Bronze Age, in the period around 1700-1500 BCE. (Unietic culture). Like the Kuyavian ones, they were made of heaped earth and stones. They are the tombs of important people in the local community. The Greater Poland pyramids are also called barrows.
The builders of the Greater Poland pyramids were well versed in metallurgy. In addition to copper and bronze, they also used gold and amber. (Zgurecki W.P., 2014: p. 6) The princes of Unietic culture were buried not only with funeral gifts but with horses.
It is worth remembering that this is a period of dynamic changes in Eurasia. Chariots are beginning to be used in the Middle East and Egypt. The Chinese are beginning to use pictographic writing. The Minoan culture (Knossos Palace) and the Mittani state are at the peak of their development. Did the lost traveler have a chance to connect the worlds of Unietic culture and, for example, Minoan culture? Who knows? Although the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin of that time preferred to follow the sea routes.
The tombs of Greater Poland in question can be seen near the village of Łęki Małe in Lubuskie (they are marked on the Google map to the north of the village's buildings).
Pyramids - tombs and monuments of the modern nobility
The first pyramid in the modern period?
From the nineteenth century until the 1930s, building pyramid-shaped tombs was fashionable in the circles of the wealthier nobility and enthusiasts of Egypt. However, the oldest tomb of this type in Poland (not counting the prehistoric ones) was built much earlier, in the first half of the 17th century. It probably contains the body of Paweł Orzechowski, chamberlain of Chełm, who was an Arian. The tomb is located in Krynica in the Lublin Province (Krasnystaw district).
What prompted Orzechowski to build such a grave for himself? As a "heretic", he could not be buried in a Catholic cemetery. Polish Brethren, also known colloquially as Arians, was a radical faction of Protestantism. First of all, they rejected the Trinity dogma. They were considered heretics and persecuted much more than Lutherans or Calvinists. No wonder that the Arian Orzechowski had to arrange for himself a place of eternal rest. Or is it just a monument?
The pyramid is not only of historical value. It is an interesting architectural object. It is shaped like a pyramid on a cube. The lower part of the Arian Pyramid is a kind of stone and brick chamber plastered from the outside. It has windows and two entrances. A brick pyramid with an elongated shape was built on it. The pyramid itself is 15 meters and the whole is 20 meters. (Śliwa J., 2005: p. 350) The tomb is situated on a hill in a young pine forest.
Egyptology and the fashion for pyramids in the 19th century
The first correct measurements of the great pyramid at Giza were published by the English mathematician John Greaves in his work Pyramidographia (1646). From the beginning of the 18th century, more and more Western travelers reached Egypt. At that time under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, the country was fascinated with its long history and mysterious architecture. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt (1798), followed by the discovery and reading of the inscriptions on the so-called The Rosetta Stone (1823).
All over Europe, interest in the monuments and culture of the ancient African state began. On the wave of these interests, the fashion for building pyramids was born. They were believed to be a symbol of victory over death. The triangular shape of the pyramid also referred to alchemical and Masonic symbolism, which meant that it had additional mysterious connotations, which aroused even greater interest.
In addition, in the mid-nineteenth century, the writer and publisher John Taylor and astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth propagated the idea of deliberate use of the so-called golden proportion in the construction of the pyramids.
All this contributed to the popularity of the prism-shaped Egyptian structures. If someone could afford it, he wanted a monument or tomb of this shape. Hence the flood of pyramid tombs in the nineteenth century, until the first half of the twentieth century.
Military and travelers pyramids
It should come as no surprise that most of the modern pyramid builders (or at least the principals) of the pyramids are people who have probably seen the original with their own eyes. Some have not been to Egypt themselves, but have heard equally exciting stories about it. Here are the most interesting modern pyramids in Poland:
The pyramid in Różanów - The first builder of the pyramid after Paweł Orzechowski was the general of the Prussian army and the owner of the Różnów lands, August Freiherr von Eben und Brunnen. The pyramid in Różanów in the Opole region is 9 meters high and was to be a copy of the Great Pyramid in Giza. It was established in 1780. An interesting fact is that it was designed by the creator of the Brandenburg Gate - Karl Landhaus. (Pyramids in Poland ..., 2021, https://www.national-geographic.pl/traveler/artykul/piramidy-w-polsce-ile-ich-jest-i-gdzie-ich-szukac-skad-wziely- Aug-polish-pyramids, accessed August 30, 2021).
Baron Friedrich von Fahrenheid's pyramid in Rapa in Masuria. The body of his three-year-old daughter was to be buried here in 1811, and then other members of the von Fahrenheit family. From an architectural point of view, the object is the resultant between the pyramid and the chapel. The base is more like a Catholic sacred object with a four-sided base. There is a small cross above the arched entrance. It is only on the roof of this building that the pyramid rises. The side of the stone base is over 10 meters long. The pyramid itself is 16 meters high. Currently, it is a well-kept facility with a smooth road leading to it. It is located 9 km north of Bania Mazurskie. The pyramid is not only an attraction for architecture lovers. Various local legends are connected with the strange object. The bodies laid in the coffins have been mummified (as predicted by Fahrenheit), but have no heads. Legend has it that the local peasants cut them off, believing that the "unnatural" corpses of former masters were the cause of cattle plague and other misfortunes.
Pyramid in Wągrowiec - no less interesting is the building located at the other end of Poland, in Greater Poland, northwest of Gniezno. It was built at the request of the Napoleonic captain, Franciszek Łakiński in 1845. Apparently, he was supposed to say that Poland would regain independence when the pines planted around the pyramid overgrown its top. The prophecy has come true. It is worth noting that the captain's beloved horse was also buried nearby. In this way, perhaps unknowingly, Łakiński referred to a tradition dating back over 3,000 years. I have already mentioned that the "princes" of the Greater Poland pyramids built in the Bronze Age were also buried with horses.
Pyramids in the 20th century
The fashion for exotic tombs did not end in the 19th century. The youngest Polish pyramids come from the 1930s. One was established in Małopolska at the request of the Skrzyński family in Zagórzany. The tomb designed by the famous Galician architect, Teodor Talowski, is very eclectic. Although it visually resembles the Cheops pyramid, which is supposed to be a copy, it is built on a triangular base. The biggest dissonance is a large cross, clearly dominating the whole, despite the fact that the pyramid itself is as much as 10 meters.
We end our journey through the Polish pyramids in Międzybrodzie, near Sanok. There is a pyramid here, commissioned by a real archaeologist and art historian - Jerzy Kulczycki of the Sas coat of arms. The tomb is a 1:50 scale model of the Cheops pyramid with minor modifications, a stone Maltese cross is placed above the plate with inscriptions in Ukrainian and Polish. The structure is 3 m high and is made of sandstone blocks. It was created in the 1930s. First, the archaeologist's father, Witold Kulczycki, was buried there. Jerzy Kulczycki himself was buried here in 1974. The author of the project was Kulczycki's niece, Irina Dobriańska.
The number of pyramids in Poland is sufficient to visit every corner of the country. Even in this article, I was able to describe only a select few. The history of these buildings is also part of the history of our country - from the mysterious inhabitants of Kujawy from the Stone Age to the 20th-century Egyptologist Kulczycki. If you have a vacation or vacation, it is worth reserving some time to visit these amazing places.
Bibliography:
Agnieszka Czekaj-Zastawy et al., The genesis of the Funnel Beaker culture in the context of cultural changes in Northern Europe in 5,000 BC, in: Przegląd Archeologiczny, Vol. 61, 2013, pp. 189-213
Joachim Śliwa, The oldest Polish pyramid. Arian tomb in Krynica near Krusty, in: Meander Vol. 60 (2005) pp. 350-355
Wojciech P. Zgurecki, Analysis of the sources for research on the funeral rite of the Unietic culture, Vol. 1, Warsaw 2014
Poland has its own pyramids. Not as grand as in Egypt, but just as intriguing. Where to look for them ?, in: https://www.national-geographic.pl/traveler/artykul/piramidy-w-polsce-ile-ich-jest-i-gdzie-ich-szukac-skad-wziely-sie-polskie - pyramids, accessed August 30, 2021
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