Swedish museums have one of the world's most interesting collections of Polish artifacts from the modern era. These objects - archives, books, militaria and works of art - found their way to Scandinavia mostly as a result of looting carried out by Swedish troops during several war campaigns in the 17th and 18th centuries. Among them, the hunting horn of Sigismund III Vasa, made from the horn of one of the last turtledoves living on Polish soil, deserves special attention.

Sigismund III Vasa hunting horn
. Compared to other Polish artefacts from the Stockholm collection, this exhibit does not stand out at first glance. It is a horn about 35 cm long, weighing just over half a kilogram, modestly set in gilded silver and with a small silk braid. The uniqueness of this object lies in the fact that the horn of one of the last Polish aurochs, fallen in 1620 in the Jaktorow Forest in Mazovia, was used to make it. The object was commissioned by the then Sochaczew starost (responsible for the care of aurochs) Stanisław Radziejowski, who in turn presented it to King Sigismund III Vasa. This is informed by an inscription, placed on a silver rim at the horn's mouth.
The horn was kept in the royal treasury in Warsaw for a relatively short period of time - as early as 1655, after the capital of the Republic was occupied by the Swedes, it was taken to Stockholm and included in the collection of the Livrustkammaren (Royal Armoury). The object is still kept in this oldest Swedish museum today.

Hunting horns were once used for hunting, mostly to give signals to hunters scattered over a wide area or to summon hunting dogs. In the old Polish hunting tradition, great respect was paid to experienced trumpeters who were able to produce clear and momentous sounds from their instruments. The most beautiful description of horn playing in Polish literature was left by Adam Mickiewicz in Book IV of "Pan Tadeusz". It is difficult to say whether Sigismund III Vasa's horn was ever used for its intended purpose, or whether it was only made as a memento of the last trumpets, whose fate this king was keenly interested in.

Only one other analogous object of Polish provenance is known to have been made from a horn - the so-called Wieliczka horn (or the horn of the Brotherhood of Diggers), set in the 1630s, probably in one of the Nuremberg goldsmiths' workshops. It is in the collection of the Cracow Saltworks Museum in Wieliczka and represents a much higher artistic level than the Livrustkammaren exhibit.

Tur on Polish soil
The tur is considered to be the ancestor of domestic cattle. This species was found throughout Europe a few thousand years ago. It was a large, herbivorous animal, living in vast, dense forest complexes. A male aurochs could reach 1.6-1.9 metres in height at the withers and up to 1,000 kg in weight. A distinctive feature of this animal was its massive, spreading horns, reaching up to 70-80 cm in length (counting after the curve).

With the development of settlement networks and the clearing of primeval forests, the tur became extinct in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. The Polish and Lithuanian-Ruthenian lands were the main refuge of this animal for several centuries. Free-living aurochs were considered the property of the dukes of Mazovia and the Polish kings, who were the only ones who had the right to hunt them (which they very rarely did). Despite the monarchical protection, the population of aurochs declined sharply during the 15th and 16th centuries. In the second half of the 16th century, only a few dozen were counted living in the Jaktorow Forest in Mazovia. At that time, foresters were settled in the village of Kozłowice, located near present-day Żyrardów, whose sole task was to guard the aurochs in the surrounding forests. According to a 1599 decree, they were to "look after the boars, pasture them, collect hay from Jaktorów from their serfs, and use this hay to dress the boars in winter; they were to report the number of boars to the leaseholder or starost (...) every quarter of a year". These actions, taken in the second half of the 16th century, are today considered to be the first example in history of active protection of nature by man (as opposed to passive protection, limited only to the issuing of bans).

Despite the efforts, aurochs became extinct in the early 17th century. The last representative of the species is believed to have died a natural death in the Jaktorow Forest in 1627. It is likely that the last herd, isolated for decades, fell victim to a contagious disease in domestic cattle, deprived of the opportunity to develop immunity through natural crossbreeding between populations.

The auroch in Western Europe was considered a peculiarity of the Polish lands. One of the oldest depictions of the aurochs comes from the mid-16th century, from the book 'Rerum moscoviticarum commentarii' by Austrian diplomat Siegmund von Herberstein. The animal was famous for its strength, as evidenced by the saying 'strong as a tur', which is still used today. This motif appears, among others, in the pages of "Quo vadis" by Henryk Sienkiewicz, in the scene of the victorious fight between Ursus and the Turk in the circus arena.

Polonica in Swedish collections
During the numerous military campaigns fought by the Swedish army in the Polish lands in the 17th-18th centuries, large quantities of cultural property fell prey to the invaders. Only a small part of them returned to Poland in various circumstances, from the revindication in the second half of the 17th century (under the provisions of the Oliva Treaty) to the transfer in 1974 of the so-called Stockholm roll by the Prime Minister of Sweden for the rebuilt Royal Castle in Warsaw.

The most valuable objects are kept primarily at Livrustkammaren and Skokloster Castle. These include the arms and armour of kings Sigismund Augustus, Sigismund III, Ladislaus IV and John Casimir, and a gallery of portraits of the bishops of Warmia. The so-called secondary loot, of which the most valuable object is the helmet of Ivan IV the Terrible, robbed in the Kremlin by Polish troops and several decades later taken from Warsaw to Sweden, can also be counted among the Polish monuments.

Valuable objects of Polish provenance can also be found in Stockholm in the collections of the National Museum, the Royal Castle and the Army Museum.