Medical therapeutics and the place of healing in early medieval Culmen in Poland

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article presents examples of medical therapeutics based on artefacts, paleobotanical and osteological materials from early medieval (tenth– thirteenth-century) Culmen, as well as historical and ethnographic sources from Poland. Culmen comprised a stronghold, settlement and cemetery and was an important place for the early Piast state. In the eleventh century it was a centre of Piast power and in the twelfth century it became a castellany. The inhabitants of Culmen developed healthcare and healing practices which involved the use of objects: knives, sickles, belemnites; plants: elderflower, willow, narrow-leaf plantain, knot-grass, water-lily, guelder rose and hazels; as well as the bones of cats, dogs, horses and cattle. Special prayers and incantations also played an important role in healing practices. Feature 4/98, which is interpreted as a stone altar, was a designated place of magic and religious rituals connected with healing in Culmen.