
When visiting the 1000-year-old city, you can easily come across discover monuments that are, for example, 600 or 800 years old. So, when coming to Gdańsk, be sure to visit the area around the Market Hall. In 2001 there was an unusual discovery made at the Market Hall in Gdańsk during archaeological excavations. The foundations of the oldest known church in Gdańsk, the first church of St Nicholas, were found. It was a Romanesque building from the 12th century. It was built on the area of an even older skeleton cemetery associated with Slavonic settlement in the area of former Gdańsk. Many valuable medieval artefacts such as temple rings, necklaces, amber and glass beads and bracelets were found in the discovered graves. The foundation of the oldest church consisted of two layers of stones that formed the plan of a rectangular nave with a width of over 14 meters and a length of almost 17. On the extension of the nave there was a presbytery finished with a semicircular apse. This plan is analogous with other Romanesque churches known at this time in Poland. Within the church discovered was also a stone slab with a protruding Romanesque relief, which most probably was an architectural element of the church facade. There were also traces of the church’s reconstruction and it seems it was given its form on a cruciform plan by the addition of two rectangular wings. The end of the church’s existence was the year 1308 and the destruction of Gdańsk by the Teutonic Knights. During reconstruction of the city, on the site of the destroyed church extended was the Dominican monastery, which was in turn destroyed during the Napoleonic wars. In the 19th century, the Market Hall was erected in neo-gothic style at the site of the monastery. Today, the remains of the Romanesque temple discovered by archaeologists can be seen exhibited in the archaeological excavation located in the hall undergrounds. Visiting the Market Hall or St Nicholas Church in Gdansk, I recommend seeing the newly discovered underground rooms, where the exhibition has been opened.