27.10.2013 Old walls found after a bomb attack

The preserved city walls were discovered by conservationists eight years ago in Opava. This happened a month after an aerial bomb from the Second World War was found in the same place. The walls were approximately 800 years old.

They were part of Opava Castle, whose history dates back to the thirteenth century. The preserved walls were found by conservationists eight years ago. A month before that, an aerial bomb from the Second World War was discovered on the same spot. This was near the so-called Müller House, which stands exactly where Opava Castle used to be.

The bomb was found during the extensive reconstruction of the Müller House. It was probably a German bomb with Soviet fuses. There was a piece of the old walls just a short distance away.

"The site of the walls is now a strip of city parks and not much building is going on in them. So we rarely get to explore in detail what lies beneath the parks. We have now managed to do that," Pavla Skalická, an archaeologist at the National Heritage Institute, said at the time.

The reconstruction of this building was a harvest for archaeologists. The renovation was planned by the Silesian Museum, and the house stands in close proximity to the museum's historic exhibition building. The connection of other buildings created a multifunctional complex for further cultural use. The Müller House otherwise still retains the width of the former parkland, which was protected from the front by another parkland wall. This area was used by the defenders of the walls.

Archaeologists eventually amassed thousands of artefacts. Specifically, utilitarian pottery, toys, stoves and bones. In the past, the archaeological finds were exhibited in the Müller House, where they could be viewed by visitors. The oldest surviving roof truss in Opava, dating from 1726, was also on display.

Müller's house also served as a castle kitchen in the past. Archaeologists have found evidence that our ancestors ate snails. "Between the walls there are layers of waste, waste from the kitchen. Among them were snail shells, which is proof that snails were eaten in the Middle Ages," Skalická said.

Sources: www.irozhlas.cz, www.polar.cz