Niedzica Castle — The Inca Princess of the Carpathians
A 14th-century Dunajec castle where an Inca princess is said to have been murdered — and whose lost testament may still point to a treasure of the Incas.
Case File No. 149
FILE 01 The Legend
Gothic Niedzica, raised by the Dunajec in the 14th century, guards a romantic story stitched between two continents: in the 18th century the heir Sebastián Berzeviczy travelled to Peru, married an Inca princess, and their daughter Umina wed the nephew of the rebel Túpac Amaru II. After the uprising's fall, the family fled across the Atlantic — and at Niedzica, the telling goes, masked pursuers stabbed Umina to death. Her testament to her son Anton, written in 1797, is said to have held the secret of the lost Inca treasure; a lead case found at the castle held knotted cords — a quipu — before its loss in Kraków. Whether by magic or misadventure, the treasure has never been found, and expeditions still depart for Lake Titicaca.
FILE 02 The Sightings Log
After Umina's death, people began seeing a woman in dark dress wandering the walls and corridors — the castle's signature ghost, still reported by staff and guests. Other tales attach to the dungeon said to have held the Slovak robber Janošík, and to colder presences in the tower rooms facing the lake.
FILE 03 The Skeptic’s File
The Berzeviczy-Inca marriage belongs to the realm of Polish popular history — plausibly seeded by the family's real transatlantic ties — and the quipu's provenance was never verified before it vanished. A castle that sells a murdered princess and a treasure map needs no actual ghost to keep its corridors busy.