Cool Finds

Archaeologists Unearth Traces of a Mysterious Medieval City That Was Abandoned Under Puzzling Circumstances Hundreds of Years Ago

Found in a Polish forest, the town of Stolzenberg appears to have been built around the turn of the 14th century. Surveys revealed evidence of a town square, a main street and a moat

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

March 20, 2026

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Researchers have discovered the remains of a medieval village buried in the forests of northwestern Poland. Known as Stolzenberg, the town was likely built in the late 13th or early 14th century. It was ultimately abandoned, though experts aren’t sure why.

Researchers from the Relicta Foundation, a Polish archaeological organization, recently excavated the site. They found what may be the remains of a town square, a main street and an 18-foot-deep moat. The dig also revealed roughly 400 artifacts spanning thousands of years. The oldest items dated to the Bronze Age, while the most recent were from World War II.

“The most valuable artifacts for us were medieval, confirming that the site was in use at the time,” Marcin Krzepkowski, an archaeologist at the Relicta Foundation, tells Fox News Digital’s Andrea Margolis. “These included silver coins, metal belt elements and coat clasps typical of medieval bourgeois costume.”

Researchers from the foundation, which specializes in lost medieval cities, have been searching for Stolzenberg since 2019, when they found a reference to it in records from 1909. The text recorded towns and villages in Kolberg-Körlin, an area that’s now part of Poland’s Western Pomerania region. It described a “dead” town near the village of Sławoborze.

In the forests south of Sławoborze, researchers found a horseshoe‑shaped ditch lined with traces of defensive walls called ramparts. When metal detectorists searched the site in 2020, they found hundreds of artifacts. In the years since, with the support of Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, researchers have conducted deep-core drilling, geophysical surveys and lidar scans.

“In an area of approximately [15 acres] enclosed by a rampart and moat, we found more than 1,500 anomalies—unusual terrain features indicating the presence of structures hidden underground, such as remnants of ancient buildings,” Piotr Wroniecki, a Relicta Foundation archaeologist, tells Ewelina Krajczyńska-Wujec of the Polish Press Agency (PAP), per a translation by TVP World’s Alex Webber.

These structures were “all organized into a neat, German-style city plan,” writes Artnet’s Vittoria Benzine. The center of town featured traces of a market square, which was surrounded by residential plots and a main street leading to the city gates. Radiocarbon dating suggested the village was active by the 14th century.

Medieval artifacts found at the site include tools, brooches, belt buckles and a coin depicting a 13th-century duke. Researchers also discovered containers of meat and butter dating back to World War II. Krzepkowski was particularly intrigued by lead rifle bullets and fragments of cannon grenades.

“We linked [these artifacts] to a battle that took place in this area in 1761 between Russian and Prussian forces [during] the Seven Years’ War,” he tells Fox News Digital.

The researchers think Stolzenberg was built at the turn of the 14th century and abandoned before the 16th or 17th century. They don’t know who founded the town or why residents left, though they have a few theories, per PAP. Perhaps plague, war, famine or border disputes contributed to the village’s downfall. Another possibility is that the town simply moved.

“Strange as it may seem, cities were sometimes relocated to new, more convenient locations, even as far as a dozen or so kilometers,” Krzepkowski tells Fox News Digital. “This could be due, for example, to proximity to a river and the threat of flooding, or to the search for a location that would allow for faster development. … Sometimes, a town’s decline was caused by shifting trade routes or competition from other nearby towns.”

The researchers are still analyzing the site. In the future, they hope to learn more about Stolzenberg residents’ diets through bioarchaeological analyses. Krzepkowski tells Fox News Digital that the Relicta team is “still at the beginning of the journey.”

“This site is a true time capsule, harboring many mysteries,” he says. “Unraveling them will help us better understand the settlement and city-forming processes in this part of Europe.”

Sonja Anderson | Read More

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.