Zosia, as the residents of Pień named her, died in northern Poland around the middle of the 17th century, when she was between 17 and 19 years old. Her real name was lost, but her grave (number 75 in the cemetery) was discovered in 2022 with two objects no one expected to find: a curved iron sickle over her neck, its blade pointing at her throat, and a triangular padlock attached to the big toe of her left foot.
According to researchers at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, someone reopened the grave before the body had fully decomposed, and the sickle appears to have been placed during this second intervention. Nothing suggests they tried to decapitate her: her head and spine were intact. She was also wearing a silk cap, a luxury at the time, which points to a high social standing.
Specialists interpret it as a precaution against a possible return from the dead, although there is no evidence of what her community thought. Why were they so afraid of a young woman in expensive clothes? Four centuries later, the question remains open.
