14th c. wood street found in Czech Republic

Archaeologists from the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice, Czech Republic, have unearthed the remains of a 14th century wooden street. The wood layer was discovered five feet below the current street level. It was built in an old Czech road-paving technique known as hatě in which logs and branches were transversely laid and packed with river gravel to make flooded or swampy ground walkable.

The well-preserved wooden remains were uncovered during an archaeological survey ahead of repair work on the Green Gate, an arched entrance and Gothic tower that was once part of Pardubice’s fortifications. The tower is an iconic landmark of the city, built after a fire devastated the medieval town in 1538.

The beautifully preserved historic center of Pardubice today dates to the same period of reconstruction after the fire, but the first written record of the name is in a papal document regarding the establishment of an order of canons for the village church in 1295. It was elevated to the status of a city 1340 when it was inherited by Arnošt of Pardubice, the future first Archbishop of Prague, from his father Arnošt of Stará. The castle and the first fortifications, likely an earthen embankment and a large moat, were built at that time.

Pardubice grew from a sleepy village to a regionally important city after the Lordship of Pardubice was acquired by Moravian and Bohemian nobleman Vilém II of Pernštejn in 1491. He made it his family seat, rebuilt the old castle into a splendid Renaissance palace and refortified the city. Vilém died in 1521 and his son and heir John of Pernštejn was Lord of Pardubice when the fire destroyed the city. He rebuilt it in the Italian Renaissance style: two-story townhomes with decorated gables and terracotta window frames around wide city squares.

Very few remains from the medieval settlement made it through the fire and Renaissance rebuilding, which makes the small section of street one of the oldest surviving pieces of the city. It was likely the original surface of Zelenobranská Street, under which it was found, and probably of the adjacent square as well.

Pieces of the medieval fortifications were found under the Green Gate in 2013. Estimates based on the remnants indicate that the Pardubice of Arnošt’s day was surrounded by a massive moat about 13 feet deep and 40 feet wide and the gate from that time was actually on an embankment of the moat. The wood of the newly-discovered street section has not been radiocarbon dated yet, but ceramic fragments found in the archaeological layer date it to the 14th century, the same period as the fortification remains.