Wood usually doesn’t get 1,000 years to survive. But in the right anaerobic wetland or underwater conditions, water can lock away a piece of the past long after almost everything around it has rotted. That’s why the wooden face from Poland’s Lake Lednica is such a strange little survivor.

In 2024, scientists from Nicolaus Copernicus University’s (NCU) Center for Underwater Archaeology and the Museum of the First Piasts in Lednica found the carved face submerged in Lake Lednica.

The face was carved into an oak structural timber known as a hook beam—specifically, beam no. 353 from a section of the stronghold rampart that had collapsed into the lake. The preserved timber is 1.34 meters long. The face sits about 50 centimeters from the end of the hook, on the outer, narrower side of a trapezoidal branch section. The carving itself measures about 12 centimeters tall and 9 centimeters wide, with modeled eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, brows, and a triangular or bearded chin.

Experts estimate that the tree from which the face (and beam) were carved the face’s tree fell in the year 967, meaning the carving has likely existed for over a millennium. This was around the same time that the founder of the Polish state, Mieszko I, was baptized, and Poland shifted into a state of Christian assimilation.

This isn’t the first face of its kind to be discovered. Similar depictions have been found in other Slavic cities including Wolin, Novgorod the Great, and Staraya Ladoga. According to experts, consistencies between these finds suggest that the beam found at Lednica reflects a local artistic and spiritual tradition, rather than Scandinavian or Rus influence. In short, the recent discovery is just one piece in the larger puzzle of medieval Slavic life.

“This discovery not only evokes admiration for the craftsmanship from over a thousand years ago but also opens a fascinating discussion about the spiritual life of early medieval Slavs,” Andrzej Pydyn, director of the Centre for Underwater Archaeology at NCU, said in the press release.

The beam appears to have belonged to the settlement’s defensive rampart. But what was the face doing there? The paper’s authors argue that it was probably associated with a deity or hero mediating between people and the spiritual world. That fits the wider symbolic reading, but it doesn’t name the face, prove a cult, or settle whether the carving was meant to guard the rampart, mark power, or do something else entirely.

Other evidence supports the idea of being part of the spiritual practices of medieval Slavic society. The researchers also discovered horse jaws and bones around ramparts, which may have come from ritual offerings or protective sacrifices, Mateusz Popek from NCU said. The team also found similar bones underneath houses.

The artifact has already become one of Poland’s best-known archaeological finds from 2025. In January 2026, the beam with the face was named “Unique Artefact of 2025” in the Archaeological Sensations 2025 poll organized by Archeologia Żywa. The broader Lake Lednica project also won recognition for popularized research, and Popek’s image of the face won for best archaeological photo.

“The [wood] face is a priceless monument and a rare example of an item combining utility and symbolic functions,” a post from the Museum of the First Piasts in Lednica reads. “The discovery from Lake Lednica not only impresses, but also opens new questions about the life, culture and spirituality of the inhabitants of these lands from over a thousand years ago.”