millPOLstone - Central Millstones Database - Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization PAS (IGiPZ PAN) - Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes

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millPOLstone - Central Millstones Database

Central Millstones Database - millPOLstone, under construction, is an interactive database with geospatial information about millstones preserved in Poland. The database was created in the course of research conducted by an interdisciplinary team of scientists. Millstones are presently found as the last elements of the former landscape associated with the mill. Often the mill itself does not exist in material space for a long time, but the last element that witnesses its functioning in the past are the millstones. Most often they can be found near the former mill, on the side of the road leading to it or at the mill farm. They are often elements integrated into a path, stairs, fence or building wall. Millstones, however, can also be found in other - seemingly surprising - locations: in a cemetery - as a miller's tombstone, in a restaurant - where they currently serve as a table top, or in the sacred space of a church. At many sites, you can find information about the plant where the millstone was made and the year of its production. In turn, the rock from which the millstone was made indicates the former range of trade. And so, in Poland we can find specimens from hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from quarries located in Germany, France, the Czech Republic and Scandinavia.

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