JUNE 14 - Walk north along Piotrkowska Street, the street in front of our aparthotel. For over a kilometer, it has been converted into a sort of pedestrian mall, with limited car access. Numerous bronze sculptures line the sides, of both random scenes and the images of famous writers, artists, and the like.
Eventually this avenue reverts back to a normal street as we arrive at Plac Wolności, a roundabout with a statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746-1817) in the center. This engineer and military leader fought both for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russia, and also in the American Revolutionary War against the British.
On this plaza is the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum. Since we haven’t really looked at any pre-historic artifacts in Poland, it seems like a good moment to see some. It is a huge, dusty building, perhaps five floors, with heavy wooden doors and creaking floors. For some reason, entry is free, and we are assigned our own ‘minder’, who directs us to the appropriate rooms (sometimes unlocking the doors for us). The lower floor is dedicated to artifacts, from the first encountered to medieval.
There are definitely some well marked stages in Polish pre-history. Evidence emerges, as it does for most of the places north of here we’ve visited, at the close of the latest Ice Age. Stone tools emerge in the period 130,000-70,000 BCE. It is certain that the climate was extremely cold, without the lush forests that cover it today. In fact, it probably started out looking a bit like Finnmark does today. Regardless, people pushed north as the climate warmed, hunting the animals that were also moving north to seek the increased vegetation cover.
Central Poland is not very conducive to the production of stone tools. The flat landscape I’ve been describing for weeks lacks rock outcroppings with material like chalcedony and flint (both composed of microcrystalline quartz, and can be made into sharp edges for cutting). It is thought that the original inhabitants of much of Poland had to trade in order to get these items. Sources for chalcedony and flint would most likely have been the mountainous areas to the south that extend into the present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia.
I large change in the human landscape of Poland is thought to have occurred about 5000 BCE, when foreign people from the Danube region came north, looking for the fertile (glacial) soils that exist here. They were agricultural people rather than the indigenous hunter-gatherers, and naturally their system of farming was soon utilized by everyone in the region. This was called the ‘Neolithic Revolution’.
After about 2500 BCE, the lifestyles of people in the region become much more well defined. Bronze finally appears, probably sources from copper deposits in the Carpathian Mountains to the south. Burial rituals become more commonplace, as do metal decorative items, and pottery.
The upper floors contain various historical items from the medieval period onwards. This included a mock-up of a early 20th Century village with various figures dressed in traditional clothing.
This part of Łódź, unlike where we are staying, is a lot grittier, with old, decaying buildings everywhere. We take a bus east to Aquapark Fala, a large indoor/outdoor water park, with slides and pools for all ages. Only the inside is being used today, too cold and windy. Once we figure out the system of getting in and storing our clothes, we spend a few hours just having fun in the water. It is the middle of a weekday so not many people here. This is the first time any of us have gone swimming since leaving Arizona. They have a few hot salt saunas, as well as tubes and slides. Apparently this is one of the largest indoor water parks in Poland.
