The year is 1976. In the village of Bronocice, in the district of Działoszyce in southern Poland, archaeologists from the Polish Academy of Sciences, aided by poacher Maniek Wróbel, have found the remains of a Neolithic vase near the Nidzica River. And what a find it is!
The vessel is decorated with an image of a cart driving through fields. Radiocarbon dating of the clay shows that the vase was made 5500 years ago, making this narrative design the oldest representation of a wheeled vehicle in the world. Simultaneously, it is proof of people’s knowledge of the traction wheel at that time. Older than the Great Pyramid of Giza, Socrates and Plato. Older than Jesus Christ and the Roman Empire. And older than the pictograms of carts from the Sumerian city of Uruk on the Euphrates.
The research is headed up by Professor Janusz Kruk from the Institute of Ethnology and Archaeology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, together with colleagues from the State University of New York. Every academic in Europe is talking about the village of Bronocice – especially the archaeologists – as are the people of Bronocice itself and the neighbouring villages. There is talk of the beginnings of civilization in Działoszyce, and the legend of Piast the Wheelwright is gaining a new dimension. The vase inspires
