When you buy through links on our web site , we may bring in an affiliate delegacy . Here ’s how it wreak .
A " pilgrim badge " from the Middle Ages featuring the innovation of a basilisk — a awful mythologic creature akin to a dragon — has been discovered in southeast Poland . Such find are rarified and can help archaeologists graph the routes taken by Christian pilgrims hundreds of years ago .
autonomous archaeologist Tomasz Murzyński , who ’s based in the Polish city of Wrocław , say Live Science in an email that a alloy detectorist found the badge in January in the hamlet of Wólka Nieliska , about 130 miles ( 210 kilometers ) southeast of Warsaw . The detectorist then gave it to Murzyński .
The pilgrim’s badge, with a symbol of a basilisk, was found in January by a metal detectorist in a village in southeastern Poland.
Such historical find belong to the body politic under Polish law , and so Murzyński handed over the artefact to the provincial conservator of historical monuments in the nearby city of Lublin , who lately issue a description and photographs of it onFacebook .
Related : Early medieval brand fish out of Polish river is in ' near perfect ' consideration
harmonise to the translated Facebook post , the badge is made from star alloyed with tin . It is circular , less than 0.04 of an inch ( about 1 millimeter ) wooden-headed and a minute more than 1 inch ( 2.8 centimeters ) across . The basilisk symbol , which look like a flying dragon with wings instead of front legs , is " cut out " of the surrounding circle and well decorated .
Analysis shows the badge is made from lead alloyed with tin. Pilgrim badges were common in the Middle Ages, but the symbol of a basilisk has never been seen before.
Medieval Christian Pilgrim often wore badges like this to show that they had chew the fat or were journeying to a particular holy place , and they were thought to protect the wearer from disease , accidents and crimes during their travels , the post state .
The badges were also a way for pilgrim to spot themselves , and some Pilgrim expose several badges on their clothing .
Pilgrim badge
The Facebook post noted that several chivalric Pilgrim Father badges have been found elsewhere in Poland — include six from the northwest city of Stargard — and that large collections of such badges are now held in museum throughout Western Europe .
Pilgrim badge typically portrayed various shapes — such as spirals , squares , cross or shield — but some also featured figures of finical saints , knights and fauna , the post said .
One of the quondam badges , date from the eleventh century and found throughout Europe , is in the shape of a clamshell and suggest that the wearer was journey on the Camino de Santiago , or " Way of St James " pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain . The case is still the symbolisation of the region today .
Pilgrim badges featuring Thomas Becket — signifyinga pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedralin southern England where he was murdered by knight of Henry II in 1170 — were also democratic , the post say .
— ' Magical artifacts ' line up along centuries - old pilgrimage route to Mecca may have protect against evil eye
— church service of the Holy Sepulchre ’s mystifying ' graffiti ' crosses may not be what they seem
— Tomb of ' Jesus ' midwife ' excavated , disclose remarkable court and rock oil lamp
But this is the first medieval pilgrim badge to show a symbolisation of a basilisk ; and while it ’s not screw what it may entail , the Polish website Historia do Rzeczy ( " History to the Point")noted its similarityto the mythological creature bonk as the Zilant , which is the official symbol of the Russian urban center of Kazan , more than 1,100 nautical mile ( 1,770 klick ) to the northeast of where the badge was chance .
For most of the Middle Ages , Kazan was govern by the Kazan Khanate , an Islamic Tartar state that prohibited the esthetic agency of people or creature ; and while the Zilant is think to have gain from a Tartar fabulous creature call Yilan , which mean " snake in the grass , " it only appears as the symbol of the city after the Tartar authorities fell to Christian Russian invaders in the 1550s .
