Emily Chan
A 1,000-year-old ice skate made from animal bone was discovered in the Czech Republic, and archaeologists are calling it an “incredible find.”
The ancient artifact was unearthed during excavations in Prerov, a city located in the Moravia region of the Czech Republic.
A team of researchers from the Comenius Museum in Prerov had been conducting a rescue dig in the basement of a home in the Upper Square area of the city when they stumbled across the skate.
According to an archaeologist from the museum, Zdenek Schenk, the artifact is thought to date back to the second half of the 10th century or the beginning of the 11th century since it was found among pieces of pottery from those periods.
“It dates back to a time when there was a very important fortress in the area of the Upper Square. It served as a stronghold for Polish King Boleslav the Brave, who occupied Moravia at the time and had his soldiers stationed there,” Schenk said.
It is unclear exactly what type of animal remains were used to create the ice skate, but it is likely that the centuries-old relic was crafted from a horse bone. Schenk also described how the skate was made.
“The object has a specific shape. On one side, it is curved into a tip which has a hole drilled in it, and there is another hole at the back. They were used to thread a strap through, which was used to attach the skate to a shoe or to a wooden sledge,” he explained.
He added that the ice skates were not used for sporting or leisure activities back then. Instead, whoever used them probably did so for practical purposes, as a way of getting around more easily in the wintertime.
The skates also did not glide smoothly across the ice. Instead, the wearer would “shuffle along the frozen surface with the help of a stick or two.”
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