Archaeologists uncover special burials from Kyivan Rus in Chernihiv

In Chernihiv, during the excavation of a water supply trench along Lubetska Street, archaeologists discovered ancient burials on the site of a burial ground from the time of Kyivan Rus, where barrow burials performed according to pagan rites were previously discovered.

Archaeologist Ihor Ihnatenko reported this.

Such a thousand-year-old burial was found during repair work and excavation of the water supply trench along Lubetska Street.

"Researchers learned that there was a burial ground here in 2019 when earthen burials of the Old Kyivan Rus era were found near the Chemists' Palace. The expert noted that the number of excavated ancient graves increased in the following years, and the remains of pagan burial mounds were also found," the expert noted.

• Chernihiv mounds

The fact that barrow burial mounds circled the ancient Chernihiv in a semicircle has been noticed by scientists for a long time. There were also barrow mounds along major roads leading out of the city.

The archaeologist says it is now difficult to say whether these discovered burials were tied to such a "belt of graves" or belonged to the ancient Lubetska road.

Scientists draw attention to an interesting detail that the excavated barrow burials here are pretty late.

• Pagan burial rituals under Christianity

"It can be said that the people of Chernihiv did not immediately become Christians, at least in the 11th century, and maybe even at the beginning of the 12th century. Some of them buried their dead under mounds. It should be noted that although the burial rite is a very conservative element of material culture, archaeologists notice the changes during the 11th century," the scientist says.

Thus, he explains, the practice of burning the bodies of the dead was initially stopped because Christianity condemned such a pagan rite, and in the old days, it was believed that a burnt dead person could not be resurrected.

In Chernihiv, archaeologists found burials from the times of late paganism.

^{Photo: facebook.com/ihor.ihnatenko}

In addition, the archaeologist adds, under the influence of Christianity, the pagans "became less "bloodthirsty" – the remains of the bodies of people and animals especially killed to accompany their master in the afterlife are no longer found in barrow burials."

• Ancient "houses of the dead."

"A clear example of this is the barrow on the way out of Sedneva, excavated […] in 2004. The deceased buried here was a rich man; he was buried in the "chamber" (house of the dead)," Ihnatenko says.

In this way, in the 10th century, nobles were buried on Kyivan Rus-Ukraine's territory and Scandinavia.

"True wealth played an evil joke with the deceased; a few dozen years after the burial, robbers dug a passage to the chamber and robbed it. Archaeologists got only a clay pot, an iron fibula, and a few other items that make it possible to date the burial to the middle of the 11th century," the scientist says.

The robbers also scattered the bones of the deceased, and it was in this position that they were "sealed" to the ground by the collapsed ceiling of the cell.

"Perhaps there were jewels in the grave, but what was missing was the bones of a wife and a horse, which are usually found in such tombs. In the end, only mounds remained of the old pagan rite. Of course, there were pagan rituals that accompanied burials in those days. I think they had enough mystical actions and words," the archaeologist says.

He also adds that scientists do not know anything about them now.

^{Photo: facebook.com/ihor.ihnatenko}

For reference:

It should be that archaeologists also discovered a defensive rampart in Chernihiv from the time of Kyivan Rus.

In addition, in the center of Zviahel in Zhytomyr Oblast, a sinkhole has formed, under which there is an underground building. Now researchers are studying it.