Puck (działka nr 148/1), woj. pomorskie. Badania w roku 2014

Abstrakt

The area of the urban plot no. 148/1 lies within the borders of the medieval chartered town in Puck, in the corner of its south-eastern housing block (Fig. 1). The archaeological investigation in 2014 provided new data about the initial lay of the land at the time of the town’s foundation, as well as development of the plot situated close to the walls and far from the heart of the town. Puck was founded in 1348 on a small plateau by the bay, in a place sufficiently large, flat, and with easy access to water. However, the area of the investigated plot was situated in a depression, still visible in the landscape, and the research confirmed presence of a small bed of an old watercourse, obliquely running across the plot in the north-eastern direction (Fig. 2). For a long time since the foundation, this plot remained an undeveloped wetland, as confirmed by peat layersaccumulated over the undisturbed soil and potsherds recovered from there, dated back to the 2nd half of the 14th c. (Fig. 3:1–7). At the beginning of the 16th c., when the watercourse had been regulated and the land reinforced with a clay levelling layer, the area was adapted to fulfil production functions. In the southern part of the parcel, a brick kiln furnace was uncovered, rectangular in shape, 3.7 m long and 80–90 cm wide (Fig. 4). The entrance to the kiln chamber was situated on the northern side, in its narrower, topmost wall, as indicated by traces of charred bricks and layers of ash. The discovered construction was a remain of asimple kiln that served for drying malt, which,along with the uncovered hard earthen floor, was a remain of a malthouse. The time of its operating was determined on the basis of the clay vessels dated back to 1st half of the 16th c. (Fig. 3:8,9). Functioning of the malthouse was perhaps associated with astone-lined well uncovered in the western part of the plot (Figs. 2, 5). According to the written sources from the final two decades of the 16th c., at least 16 malthouses owned by the burghers were operating in Puck at that time. The oldest registered relics of residential buildings on the parcel were only remains of a stone foundation of two buildings in the front part of the plot which were not built before the end of the 18th c. or in the 19th c.