Ceramic 51 The Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania 1

Plates, late 16th -early 17th century, glazed clay, slipware.
Slipware pottery refers to earthenware ceramics decorated using slip – a liquid mixture of clay and water (or mineral suspension) applied to the surface of a wet or leather-hard clay body before firing.
Photos: Füsun Kavrakoğlu, The Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius, 2026.

In the beginning of the 14^th century, a square brick building (about 11×11 meters) was built inside the castle, near its southern defensive wall. The interior of the building had no partitions and was about 50-60 meters square. The exterior walls were nearly two meters thick and were made of red brick, which was laid using the Baltic (or Wendish) brick bond method. There were meter-wide bays in the eastern and western walls of the building. There was a small brick annex on the north side of the building.

Gothic-era bricks used for the stairs and floors show that the building was reconstructed in the 15^th century. Nervure bricks, typical of the Gothic era, fragments of painted and decorated plaster (frescoes), and glazed floor tiles were found in the ruins.

This nicely decorated building may have been a residence for the grand dukes or the bishop. Like the other brick building in the center of the courtyard, it had no buttresses and wooden ceilings, attesting to its age.

Only a part of the cellar, paved with field stones and brick, remains extant. Access to the cellar from the inner courtyard was by way of the stairs in its northeast corner.