The exhibition is divided into three parts. In the first one, visitors will see a short introduction that maps the painstaking work of experts since 2017. During that time, clay from an area the size of 683 football fields and more than 200,000 artefacts have been found under their hands.
“The exhibition is also an example of communication between two worlds that don’t like each other very much, i.e. between construction and archaeology. It is proof that the work of both directions can be combined, and thanks to this even current research can proceed very well,” explained exhibition curator Jan Musil.
The remaining part represents other different worlds, namely the world of the living and the dead. In the center of the room, a circular wall separates the part hiding important finds from two graves, which were built by the tribes in the Slatiňany area during the migration of peoples. The skeletal findings of a roughly 40-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman complement the gifts given to them by their relatives on their final journey. Among them, in addition to a belt buckle or a glass cup, there is also a sword made of false Damascus, which was a high-quality and expensive weapon at the time, determining their higher status in society.
The exhibition is unique in its scope, which does not overwhelm the visitor. “We don’t have a lot of chopped items next to each other here. We wanted to make the exhibition selective and show not only what was found, but also what the work of an archaeologist entails,” museum director Tomáš Libánek introduced.
The well rested in sugar
The creators show what happens from the actual digging into the ground, through the search for artifacts, to other scientific methods and their investigation. For example, they provide a closer look at the laser scanning method. It was originally intended to search for Vietcong guerrillas during the Cold War, today it helps archaeologists describe the surface of the landscape without the need to enter the ground and thanks to it, it is possible to determine what lies beneath the terrain.
The biggest attraction of the exhibition, which will last in the castle’s Kaňka Hall until January 2026, is the oldest wooden well in the world. It comes from the Neolithic period and was discovered in 2018 during construction work in Ostrov in Chrudim. It was hidden underground at a depth of three meters for more than seven thousand years, its exact replica is available at the exhibition.
The original was preserved by experts from the Faculty of Restoration at the University of Pardubice by placing it in a sugar solution for 16 months. “We will not deprive visitors of its original, there are three wooden slabs directly from the well from the sixth millennium BC on display. In addition, the exhibition is partly interactive, so everyone can test the sharpness of the ax that was used to make the replica,” added Tomáš Zavoral, head of the museum’s archaeological department.
