Bodzia Cemetery information

Bodzia Cemetery is a large 10th – 11th century chamber burial site in Bodzia, a town in the Kuyavia region of Central Poland, approximately 15 km to the northwest of Włocławek. A group from the Polish Academy of Sciences, led by Polish archaeologist, Andrzej Buko, excavated this site between 2007 – 2009. The excavation uncovered a large elite necropolis containing more than 58 graves, cenotaphs, weapons and riches. The Bodzia Cemetery is considered to be one of the most significant and "spectacular"^[1] Early Medieval findings in Poland in the last century. Artefacts uncovered in the site were mostly of foreign origin, which is atypical of other sites in the area. Information gleaned from the Bodzia Cemetery provided archaeologists with evidence of burial practices during the Early Medieval period in Poland.

Chamber burial sites were common in the area, being a primary practice within Old Rus, Scandinavian and Slavic countries in the Viking-Age.^[2] The study of Bodzia Cemetery is important, as it helps illustrate the socio-cultural and ethnic aspects of settled peoples in Poland, as reflected in the necropolis. The burial site indicates two separate periods of use. The first is from 980 – 1035 AD, and the second from the late 11th and early 12th centuries. There has been little evidence of an early settlement discovered, though, finds from a later settlement have been tentatively attributed to the second phase of the cemetery.^[3] The ethnicity of those buried at the site is inconclusive, as isotopic analysis of the remains indicate that they were from an unknown foreign origin. The site demonstrates burial rituals and artefacts of Kievan Rus, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian and Khazar origin. The nature of multiculturality at the site, and proximity to the Vistula River trade route, indicates that it was perhaps a foreign trade settlement connecting the Baltic to the Byzantine Empire.^[4]