Deep Discovery - The Slavic Longship In Gdansk (Northern Poland & Berlin #56a)

Gdansk is not on the Baltic Sea, but it might as well be. While the city is located five kilometers from the shoreline, the main historical influence on its development has come from the Baltic. As the Baltic goes, so goes Gdansk. The Motlawa River connects the city directly to the sea. This had led to tentacles of trade extending from the Baltic into Gdansk. Those have been an invaluable lifeline for the city. Trade via the Baltic built Gdansk. Only in the 21st century has the Baltic’s main role in Gdansk’s economy begun to subside. Because of the role waterways have played in the history of Gdansk, it is hardly surprising that Poland’s National Maritime Museum is located there. What I did find surprising was a singular artifact in the museum, one that showed just how deep Baltic influence flows in the area’s history.

Going Overboard - Fear of Water

When my travel companion and I decided to visit Gdansk, it was for the history, not the water. I would soon discover that the two were inseparable. This was a revelation because water is not my thing and I doubt it ever will be. I never took to water until I was a teenager. Prior to that, there had been several futile attempts at learning how to swim. Besides a bit of wading in the Atlantic Ocean, I avoided water due to a fear of drowning. Even after I learned how to swim as a teenager, water was something I avoided. I gravitated towards other pursuits, one of which was history. Even then my fear of water influenced my historical interests.

Like many young boys, I was extremely interested in military history, but my curiosity stopped at the water’s edge. I did not care for naval battles. I could imagine fighting in a ground battle. What I could not imagine was being on a ship while an enemy vessel targeted it with projectiles. Militarily, water is a force much more difficult to reckon with than terrain. Falling over on a battlefield can be a life -saving measure, falling overboard in a naval battle is akin to a death sentence. Trying to stay upright on a turbulent sea in the middle of a life-or-death struggle was way too much for me. I sometimes wonder how many casualties in naval battles were due to sailors being unable to swim. More certainly died of drowning than enemy fire. I was all for sure-footedness and standing one’s ground. Naval battles I mostly ignored.

Exotic Explorations – The Unexpected Finds

I also managed to stay grounded when it came to other historical interests such as exploration. That was something anyone could do on the ground. Exploring on water could only be done with a ship. Sailing and seafaring took another level of understanding that never really piqued my interest. While I loved visiting historic sites and museums, these needed to be land based for me to show sustained interest. That until something unexpected happened on multiple occasions. Several of my most memorable visits to historical attractions involved watercraft. There was the U.S.S. Cairo at Vicksburg National Military Park, a couple of ancient vessels that had been salvaged from the Rhone and Danube Rivers. The former, a barge housed in the Museum of Ancient Arles in southern France. The latter known as the Monoxylon (Log Boat), on display at the City Museum of Novi Sad at Petrovaradin Fortress in northern Serbia. Then, just a month before visiting Gdansk, I was in Charleston, South Carolina where I saw the C.S.S. Hunley, the world’s first submarine which had been excavated from Charleston Harbor.

The excavation, restoration, and preservation of all these vessels was fantastic. Each of them was a world -class archeological find that had somehow managed to survive submersion for anywhere from decades to thousands of years. While I could see how the U.S.S. Cairo and C.S.S. Hunley managed to survive intact because of the materials with which they were constructed, the ancient watercraft were another matter entirely. They were made of wood. In the case of the one at Petrovaradin, the boat had been sculpted out of a single Slavonian oak. Its survival was a freak of nature, the preservation and restoration a triumph of science and technology. I can still recall leaving the museum at Petrovaradin and looking down at the Danube from the fortress ramparts. I wondered what other deep secrets were hidden beneath the river’s murky water. Little did I know that in northern Poland there was another astonishing find well worth a visit.

Coming Up For Air - A Deep Discovery

The other day I was going through photos I had taken on my trip to Poland. These were mostly random images I initially ignored because they lacked the wow factor of dramatic scenery. Many of the images were of museum exhibits that I wanted to study more in-depth. Museums in Poland are extremely thorough. While I find the exhibits interesting, I do not have the time or patience to read every bit of text. I often take photos of those I feel are worth remembering. These images include artifacts and their accompanying exhibit text. I took a series of these at the National Maritime Museum. The multi-story museum offered plenty to see with its exhaustive coverage of naval history for Gdansk and Poland.

Unfortunately, my travel companion and I were on the verge of intellectual exhaustion after numerous museum visits over the past two weeks. By taking photos of the most unique exhibits I would be able to later review them at my leisure. This plan worked to perfection. Deep in the exhibits, I came across a Slavic longship that had been excavated from a nearby lagoon. The longship was the rarest of finds from the early Middle Ages. My knowledge of such vessels is limited to Viking Longships. The Vikings were a powerful force in the Baltic region. I had rarely thought about their contact with other cultures, particularly those in Eastern Europe. That was about to change as I soon discovered that the longship told a larger story about a people, place. and time of which I knew very little about it.