Lost Castle Discovered in Žilina
Here we go again. Another construction project in a Slovak town yields an archaeological treasure: a lost castle, one that had been rumored to have existed but had never been previously found, was uncovered in Žilina when construction workers were digging and preparing a construction site for a new shopping center.
How fabulous is that? Only in Europe can you be digging around and happen to come a cross a castle that had been misplaced over the years. I wrote a blog about this phenomenon of uncovering archaeological treasures by happenstance. For me it’s one of the coolest things about living in Slovakia… .
According to the article in the Slovak Spectator on the Žilina discovery, what has been uncovered so far is part of a tower, dated from approximately the 13th century. It’s unknown how tall the tower is. They won’t know until they continue digging down, by hand, for the next several weeks.
The land is owned in part by the developer of the shopping mall, George Trabelssie. Finding an archaeological treasure where the parking lot was supposed to be is just a bit of an inconvenience, but it doesn’t seem to matter because he’s already thinking of ways to incorporate the castle into the shopping mall as an added attraction to bring in visitors. In the article, Trabelssie is quoted as saying, “This increases the cost of construction, but also the number of visitors. The Aupark shopping centre, which is being built nearby, will not have any similar attraction.” So I can imagine that Mr.Trabelssie was doing a little dance last week while singing: Na-na-na-na-na… I’m going to have a castle in my shopping center but you won’t, Aupark!
Anyway, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled waiting to see pictures of parts of the newly uncovered Žilina castle.
