A Germanic prince, whose tomb was found in 2005 in Poprad, grew up in the Spiš region, but spent most of his short life in the Mediterranean region. (source: TASR/Oliver Ondráš)
The opening date of a new exhibition, "The Prince of Poprad and his Tomb" in the Podtatranské Museum in Poprad, is inching closer.
The new attraction, focused on an historic archaeological find in the city, received an important permit in the autumn, and the new display should be made available to the public this year following test runs in late 2022, Daša Jeleňová, spokesperson for the founder of the museum, the Prešov Self-Governing Region, announced, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
The exhibition will open about one year later than planned.
It was originally supposed to launch at the end of 2021, but those plans were thwarted by the situation related to Covid-19, and the delayed process of getting funds approved and conducting a public procurement process.
Returned from Germany
The final part of the unique wooden architecture, which is over 1,600 years old, was returned to Slovakia in May 2022 after sixteen years of analysis and conservation in specialised laboratories in Germany.
The exhibition dedicated to the prince's tomb is being installed on the ground floor of the renovated premises of the museum in Poprad.
It will include all the most important finds from the tomb, but only a few beams from the chamber itself will be exhibited due to space reasons.
The exhibition will also include digital presentations focused not only on the tomb itself, but also on life under the Tatra mountains in the 4th century, as well as on the life of the prince and the period in which he lived.
The museum is expecting up to 50,000 visitors to tour the exhibition annually.
Discovered by coincidence
The 4th-century tomb was discovered accidentally during construction of an industrial park in the Poprad district of Matejovce in 2005, located at a depth of five metres.
It consisted of a roofed log chamber with a wooden sarcophagus, together with internal equipment.
It also contained interior furnishings, leather and textile remains of the prince's clothing, and even the remins of food contained in ceramic and bronze vessels.
Decorative objects made of bronze, silver and gold were also found in the tomb.
"Despite historical looting, the soil conditions meant that things that archaeologists do not normally find, i.e. wood, skins, textiles and other organic items, had been preserved, for example a bed or table turned from wood, a leather bow case, parts of a patterned tapestry, a wooden sarcophagus, wooden coffins on which the dead were carried to the grave, and a number of other unique objects," specified the Institute of Archeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) in Nitra on the occasion of the tomb's return to Slovakia.
