| Giecz | |
| Settlement Type: | Village |
| Total Type: | |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Type1: | Voivodeship |
| Subdivision Name1: | Greater Poland |
| Subdivision Type2: | County |
| Subdivision Name2: | Środa Wielkopolska |
| Subdivision Type3: | Gmina |
| Subdivision Name3: | Dominowo |
| Coordinates: | 52.3208°N 17.3736°W |
| Pushpin Map: | Poland |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Population Total: | 140 |
Giecz is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Dominowo, within Środa Wielkopolska County, Greater Poland Voivodeship, in west-central Poland.[1] It lies approximately 5km (03miles) north of Dominowo, 120NaN0 north-east of Środa Wielkopolska, and 330NaN0 east of the regional capital Poznań.
Giecz was once one of the main centres of Polish statehood in the early Middle Ages, alongside Poznań and Gniezno. In the early 9th century, a small keep was built on a mound on a peninsula on the Giecz lake; fortified with a stockade and earthworks. Since 940 it was one of the key strongholds of the early Piast dynasty. In 1038 during a war with Bohemia, the place was seized by Bretislaus I, who sacked the nearby settlement and sold its inhabitants into slavery. The place quickly recovered and by the 13th century was a centre of administration, trade and commerce in the Greater Poland region. At about that time, the settlement received a town charter and became the seat of a castellany. However, in 1331, it was burnt to the ground, never to recover.
After 1945, archaeologists discovered the remnants of a mediaeval Latin: italic=no|[[Palace|pallatium]], a pre-Romanesque rotunda, stone walls, a 13th-century palace and several sites of primitive iron-ore working.
Currently, Giecz is the site of ongoing excavations. There are two habitation phases being excavated at the same location. The first is a cemetery dated to the 10-11th century. The second, located just beneath the cemetery, is an earlier settlement. Features of this settlement include open earthen structures, hearths, storage pits, and rich culture layers.[2] Funding for these excavations is provided by the Slavia Foundation and the First Piasts Museum, Lednica.