Thousand-year-old bone skate discovered in Moravian city of Přerov

Photo: Lenka Kratochvílová, Czech Radio

Archaeologists from the central Moravian city of Přerov have announced a unique discovery. While carrying out excavations in the centre of the town, they came across an ice skate made of animal bone dating back some 1,000 years.

Experts from the Comenius Museum in Přerov, a town situated on the River Bečva, have been carrying out rescue digs in the basement of a house located on the city’s Upper Square. While sifting through the soil, they unearthed a bone skate dating back to the 10th or 11th century. Archaeologist Zdeněk Schenk says it was most likely made of horse shin bone:

“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.”

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Author: Ruth Fraňková