Chotyniec - the Western Gate of Scythia

This temporary exhibition on the finds from the Scythian-period hillfort at Chotyniec ran at the Janusz Peter Regional Museum in Tomaszów Lubelski from June to the end of August 2026.

Janusz Peter Regional Museum on the exhibition (our translation; the museum has no English version of this page):

A temporary exhibition devoted to the discoveries at the archaeological site in Chotyniec.

What to expect

The exhibition poster, embedded in a museum post dated 15 June 2026, gives the run as “czerwiec - sierpień 2026 r.” (June - August 2026). The museum named no opening or closing day. The dates used here, 1 June and 31 August 2026, are our reading of the poster: the first and last days of the months it names. The show was already open on 12 June: the European Archaeology Days programme (in Polish), which the museum published on 28 May, scheduled a visit to the exhibition that day at 12:00-13:00.

The poster shows two objects: a reconstructed clay amphora from the Chotyniec hillfort, dated to the late 7th and early 6th century BC, and a Scythian arrowhead from the Tomaszów museum’s own collection. The museum did not publish an object count or a floor plan. The poster carries the logo of the University of Rzeszów’s Institute of Archaeology and notes state funding under the state programme “Nauka dla Społeczeństwa” (Science for Society).

The funded project was titled “Turbulent borderland of Central and Eastern Europe in the Early Iron Age (7th-5th century BC)” (our translation). An education offer for nurseries and schools accompanied the exhibition. Its workshops covered making ancient-style copper ornaments and ancient everyday and figural pottery, and the offer poster added the option of visiting the new exhibition.

Context

Chotyniec (Jarosław County) is the site of a complex of fortified Scythian-period settlements (7th-5th century BC), discovered in 2016 by a University of Rzeszów team. The find pushed the accepted western boundary of Scythian influence roughly 200 km to the northwest.

A touring exhibition on the site, “Grodzisko w Chotyńcu. Zachodnia brama Scytii”, comes from the University of Rzeszów’s Institute of Archaeology. At the National Museum of the Przemyśl Region (25 November 2025 - 28 February 2026) it was curated by Prof. Sylwester Czopek and Dr Katarzyna Trybała-Zawiślak.

That showing had over 100 artefacts, including bronze, bone and iron arrowheads, a necklace of faience beads and bronze, gold foil and bronze pins. It also had a reconstructed Greek wine amphora from Klazomenai, local pottery, spindle whorls and a fragment of an animal figurine.

No source confirms that the same set of artefacts came to Tomaszów Lubelski. This is context for the touring exhibition, not a description of the objects shown in Tomaszów.

Tickets and time

During the run the museum kept its summer hours: Tuesday to Friday 9:00-16:00, Saturday and Sunday 9:00-17:00, closed Mondays. The price list named no separate ticket for temporary exhibitions. A standard ticket cost 10 PLN, a reduced ticket (pupils, students and pensioners with ID) 8 PLN, a group ticket (organised groups of more than 10) 5 PLN. A guided tour cost an extra 30 PLN.

The school workshops that accompanied the exhibition cost 10 PLN per person, booked by phone on +48 84 664 27 74. Organised groups had to book in advance. Free admission applied only to the separate Chamber of Memory of Communist Terror at ul. Lwowska 64, not to this exhibition. English on site: the museum gave no English-language information for this exhibition.

Updates

• 2026-10-04 - Dates corrected: the poster embedded in the museum’s post on the exhibition (in Polish) gives the run as “czerwiec - sierpień 2026 r.” (June - August 2026). The closing date is now 31 August 2026, and the opening date 1 June 2026 instead of 15 June, which was only the date of the post. The museum’s European Archaeology Days programme shows the exhibition open on 12 June. Earlier versions of this page missed the poster and left the closing date blank.
• 2026-09-23 - The Wiktor Ambroziewicz Museum of the Chełm Land is showing “Grodzisko w Chotyńcu - Zachodnia brama Scytii” (The Chotyniec Hillfort - the Western Gate of Scythia) at ul. Lubelska 55. It runs from 9 September to 2 November 2026 (sources in Polish: opening announcement , list of temporary exhibitions ). The exhibition was prepared by the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Rzeszów.
• 2026-09-23 - Correction: the rule that groups must book at least a day ahead applies to the Chamber of Memory of Communist Terror, not to the main building. For the main building at ul. Wyspiańskiego 8a the museum only says that groups should book in advance (visitor information , in Polish).

See also

Janusz Peter Regional Museum profile - the museum’s permanent collection and other holdings.

The Chotyniec Hillfort. The Western Gate of Scythia at the Wiktor Ambroziewicz Museum of the Chełm Land - an exhibition on the same site, in Chełm until 2 November 2026. The University of Rzeszów’s Institute of Archaeology prepared it.

After the show

The museum in Tomaszów Lubelski has not said where the exhibition went next. The University of Rzeszów’s exhibition on the same hillfort is on at the Museum of the Chełm Land until 2 November 2026; neither museum says whether it is the same set of objects. No catalogue was found.

On the Tomaszów museum’s list of temporary exhibitions, the Chotyniec post is still the newest (checked 4 October 2026); the museum has announced no new temporary exhibition. Its permanent displays are described in the museum profile .

Two current exhibitions at nearby museums in the network also cover archaeology. A Different Światowid at the Museum of the Biłgoraj Land is an exhibition on loan from the Archaeological Museum in Kraków that tells the story of the Zbruch idol; the original idol is not shown. Inscribed in Time at the Zamość Museum surveys a century of its collections, archaeology included.

No reviews or press reports on the Tomaszów Lubelski showing were found.

Museum profile: Janusz Peter Regional Museum in Tomaszów Lubelski .