Torun No. 3 / Thorn / Toruń

Sulkowska-Tuszyńska's 2022 detailed report [Kościół świętego Jakuba w Toruniu. Historia w ziemi zapisana.pdf] [accessed 19 January 2024] of the excavations carried out between 2008 and 2020 in this church has a section (p. 119-120) dedicated to the elements of material culture found in the cemetery, among which was the stone basin of a baptismal font, believed to have been discarded there in the late-19th century at the earliest. [NB: the descriptions below, supplied by Pol Herman to BSI, are translated from the original Polish text of the report]. The artefact found is part (about 1/3 of the whole) of a hemispherical stone baptismal bowl (outer diameter 55 cm, wall thickness 6–9 cm) beautifully decorated with a convex relief in the form of lions walking around the basin. This basin may have been originally located in the western part of the church. The bason found during archaeological excavations, adds the report, was made of Gotland limestone, in Gotland, by a local stonemason. It is less likely that only a limestone appropriate block of stone was brought from Gotland, to be carved into an octagonal basin with reliefs in the form of lions under the arcades, following the example of the well-known Gotlandic baptismal fonts. The illustration reproduced in the report (ibid., p. 120) shows two possible designs of the font: the same octagonal basin with low-relief passant animals, the option on the left using what was a common base on the Paradise fonts of Gotland, a round splaying pedestal base with a roll moulding atop, the other, seen on this illustration on the right, with an octagonal pedestal base instead. The report (ibid.) suggests that the basin, the stone of which has been identified as Gotland limestone, can be dated between the 2nd half of the 13th century and 2nd–3rd quarter of the 14th century. [NB: if the drawings are correct in representing the object's decoration, this basin can be classified in the Fröjelgruppen of fonts produced on Gotland on the 14th century, so named after the font at Fröjel [cf. BSI entry]