Polish metal detectorist Jacek Ukowski recently made a surprising discovery while looking for World War II artifacts in the village of Wysoka Kamieńska. Ukowski found fragments of a seal from a papal bull dated to the 14th century. Papal bulls were decrees issued by Popes that featured a metal seal as a form of authentication.
According to an announcement made by the nearby Museum of the History of the Kamień Land, the seal features a Roman numeral and a partial name. However, it is impossible to identify the pope it belonged to with certainty.
What is interesting about the fragments is that they have been found near train tracks. It is unclear how it got to that location, although experts assume it was either lost in transportation or simply discarded there.
This was the third papal bull seal that was found in the same region. Ukowski found the two of them, including the latest one, and gifted them to the museum.
“Only a dozen or so [objects] of this type have been discovered in the country, and they are considered unique,” Grzegorz Kurka, archaeologist and director of the Museum of the History of the Kamień Land, told Science in Poland.