Department of Wood Science

Uherské Hradiště, as an important and strategically situated city used to have a stone fortification which was developed through centuries, strived and finally disappeared as a result of construction of a new baroque fortification, of a larger house-building and new partition. In modern times, including present-day activities its remnants were damaged by numerous activities, e.g. underground services and basement of new houses, many of which were a subject to an archaeological research. On the recent cases is uncovering of circa 12 m long inner medieval fortification wall in Dlouhá Street as a result of an archaeological research before construction of a new apartment house with shops. Before the construction two test pits were made aimed at uncovering possible line of medieval fortification on the above mentioned plot. It was reasonable to expect the line to be found here on the basis of the old iconographical materials and maps. The idea was supported by previous archaeological activities in Dlouhá Street and its close surroundings during which a destruction of the inner part of fortification was discovered as a result of revitalisation of a sewer.
The most important discovery was an archaeological situation from the test pit 1 with the remnants of stone fortification the origins of which, according to written sources, date back to 14th century. Besides the fortification itself a unique finding of a wooden construction at the base of fortification was made. On the basis of laboratory tests it can be provisionally interpreted as a timber support of a gutter outlet for waste water. From the chronological point of view we can date the oldest layers of settlement along the fortification back to 2nd half of 13th century. Late medieval layers were damaged by modern-times activities from renaissance and baroque periods. Besides others, a modern-times sewer outlet was discovered consisting of two lime stone gutters and built in into the original fortification by burnt bricks. As for other structures a documented profile of a lime pit and some basements of modern-times constructions some of which were provided with cellars, are worth mentioning. The youngest findings are those of a pavement made of cobblestones circa 50 cm under the current surface from the
half of 20th century. Due to the documentation of this situation we can get the idea of numerous banks creating a current horizon.
Among the number of archaeological medieval findings a unique well preserved golden necklace and a small silver badge with vegetable motif are worth mentioning. These artefact are completed by a wide plaque of kitchen and table ceramic, numerous chips of animal bones and shards of glass containers as well as metallic objects. Due to permanently wet surroundings in waterlogged underlying clays some little wooden objects were preserved and, surprisingly enough, also a large variety of seeds and parts of stones and shells.
In the second test pit (3×2.5 m) the remnants of original medieval parcelling were found. Basements of two development phases of stone constructions joined by clay or lime mortar were uncovered. These can be dated to high medieval times as well mainly due to supporting ceramic materials. Thus the archaeological situations from the second test pit are another important lead in solution the question of development of the original medieval parcelling in Uherské Hradiště.
Dating of the walls back to the 14th century is also an important contribution to handling the problem of the development and construction of the body of fortification walls. Even though the basement of the rampart was built on a clay subsoil, the layers at the foot of the basement originated as a result of functioning of gutter outlets. Thus the material in the context of 121, 122, and 123 had to be deposited already at the time when the body of the fortification had already been built. The construction of the body of rampart may be supposed as to be carried out in two phases, which is supported by archaeological research in Dlouhá Street, by older researches and by the theory by Z. Gardavský. The first phase was carried out in 14th century, the oldest documented part of the fortification is the old town gate dated back to the first half of 14th century. In the second phase, during 16th century, the construction was widened in its north-wet and south-west parts. The two phase appears to be very probable, based on the known situations. Nevertheless, the question remains why, with the exception of Nádražní Street, the body of fortification separating the newly enclosed area from the original one was not uncovered and why there are no traces of the older phase in iconographical materials. However we can not exclude the possibility of only one-phase construction of the walls, that the younger rampart segments could be repairs after floods or wars.