Presentation

The Poles (from the country Polska, the ‘Plain’, as attested in the Chronicle of Theodosius of Kiev in the 11th century and the Chronicle of Gervasius in 1235) originate from the three tribes of the Vistulans of Lesser Poland, the Polans, and the Silesians of Silesia (8th century). According to legend, it was at Gniezno that Lech, chief of the Polans, laid the foundations of the Polish state after finding there the nest of a white eagle. Polish history offers a striking contrast between the geographical and political instability of the Polish state and the constancy of national affirmation.

The coat of arms depicts the legendary white eagle (orzeł biały), crowned in gold. The Polish flag takes up the heraldic colors white and red, in use since the 13th century.

We present here a symbol drawn from the indigenous background of medieval pottery and early Polish heraldry, which share the same archaic signs. The rectangle evokes the plan of a house and the totality of a territory, marked by the directions of space. This geometric symbol corresponds to the morphology of the heraldic eagle, constructed on a vertical axis and two diagonals. The documentary source is a table of marks from the site of Kruszwica (the cradle of the Piast dynasty) recorded by W. Dzieduszycki (Wczesnomiejska ceramika kruszwicka w okresie od 2 połowy X w. do połowy XIV w., Wrocław, 1982, mark IV f of the table), a table reproduced in Andrzej Buko, The Archaeology of Early Medieval Poland: Discoveries, Hypotheses, Interpretations (translation), Leiden, 2008, p. 384.