Mostishchensky labyrinth

Mostishchenskoye settlement And labyrinth "sanctuary" located in the Lukodonye valley, Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh region, on the right bank of the Potudan River.

In 1957, the Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of P.D. Liberova discovered the Mostishchenskoye settlement for science. The Mostishchensky labyrinth is located on the territory of the Mostishchensky settlement. Such stone structures are well known throughout the world, most often called cromlechs (ancient observatories-luminaries).

Maze design It consists of a central platform made of stone pavement and six concentric elliptical rings surrounding it, between which in some cases lintels are fixed. The labyrinth had the shape of an oval, built of chalk stones. The stones are laid on turf, on a level place, without any binding solution or adjustment. The structure itself consists of six ring-shaped masonry. They are badly damaged, but in general the approximate size can be established.

The maximum height of stones in ancient times did not exceed half a meter; the larger diameter of the outer ring along the west-east line reaches 40 meters. There are several granite boulders in the western section of the outer chalk. Another one is north of the center of the labyrinth. Granite is a rare rock for this area.

Let us once again make a reservation that the ruins of a structure have survived to us, which in its original form was architecturally more complex and systematic. But what has survived to this day leaves no doubt: these are the remains of a “megalithic” structure for religious purposes. It can be called a sanctuary, a labyrinth.

Because the local residents For a long time, the local stones had been quietly taken away for their own needs, archaeologists had to preserve the find by burying it.

There is a version of the astronomical purpose of the Mostishchensky labyrinth. It is associated with astronomical data on the location of stones. Granite stone No. 1, when observed from the center of the labyrinth, has an azimuth of 0, i.e. it indicates the direction to the north. The other two granite stones quite accurately indicate the direction of the sunrise points on the winter and summer solstice. Nearby granite boulders indicate the direction to the rising point of the autumn and spring equinox.

Thus, it is a fair assumption that the Mostishchensky labyrinth was used as an observatory for observing celestial bodies. It could also be a place for ritual ceremonies.

Square Mostishchenskoye settlement 2.3 hectares. During excavations here, the remains of defensive fortifications of the Scythian period were found on two capes. Here, on two capes, the remains of defensive fortifications (fortifications) of the Scythian period were found - Mostishchenskoye fortification and Averinskoye fortification, which appeared on the Middle Don in the 6th century. BC e.

Mostishchenskoe settlement is small in size; archaeologists have identified the remains of only six residential buildings. The buildings are of the yurt type and are located along the edges of the settlement, at the outskirts of the cape, and one of the buildings is located at its very edge. All yurts are similar, up to 20 square meters in area, with rectangular bases and post holes in the center.

Stone labyrinths of the North

A.A. Spitsin. issue No. 6 St. Petersburg, 1904, Archaeological Commission.

Many scientists and archaeologists were interested in labyrinths and their purpose. Academician Ber has studied Finnish stone labyrinths since 1842. small island Vir, located near the island of Gokhland in the Gulf of Finland.

More detailed information about the stone labyrinths of Finland was collected in 1877 by Aspelin, who in his article lists up to 50 labyrinths located along the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland and on the islands, from the Torneo River to Vyborg.

In Lapland, the first labyrinths were also indicated by Behr. One of them is located on south coast Laplana Peninsula, in the small uninhabited Vilovataya Bay. Ber saw two other labyrinths on Ponoy.

In 1877, they were examined, described and sketched by the ethnographer A. A. Kelsiev for the Anthropological Exhibition (According to Mr. Aspelin, Kelsiev found 3 labyrinths on the Solovetsky Islands and 2 or 3 on the Murmansk coast.), but where are the ones collected by him currently located? information is unknown to us.

In 1883, a member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society A.I. published brief information about the same labyrinths. Eliseev.

Curious historical information has been preserved about two large Babylons built near the city of Kola near the Varengsky churchyard. This information was collected locally by Russian ambassadors, Prince. Zvenigorodsky and Vasilchikov in 1592, awaiting the start of negotiations with the Swedes on the border.”

And in Vareng, at the German massacre (Vareng summer churchyard) To lay down for his glory, having brought it from the shore with his own hands, he laid a stone, at a height from the ground there are now even more oblique fathoms, and near it, in the distance, stones were laid out, like a city frame of 12 walls , and he called that salary Babylon. And that stone that is on Varenga, and to this day the word “Valitov stone”, a feature of the Valitov labyrinth is the large stone in the center of the structure.

The Ponoi labyrinths were known to Beru and were examined in 1900 by K.P. Reva.

There are two more known places in the White Sea where there are labyrinths: the Zayatsky Islands, near Solovetsky, and the Kemsky Islands. A.V. Eliseev, who gave the first information about them.

The first explorer of the northern labyrinths, Ber, recognized the possibility that they served as monuments of historical events. Ber recognizes the Vareng labyrinth as actually built by Valit, in which he is ready to see the Novgorod Varangian, who became the head of the Korelians, successfully fought with the Norwegians, but subsequently submitted to them and is known in the Norwegian chronicles under the name Martin.

In 1882, Meyer collected quite significant information about labyrinths depicted in medieval manuscripts starting from the ninth century.

"Labyrinths" - "Babylons"

A labyrinth is a structure with a complex and intricate plan. So what are labyrinths?

The first mention of labyrinths in domestic sources dates back to the 16th century and is contained in the notes of Russian diplomats G.B. Vasilchikova and S.G. Zvenigorodsky, who traveled in 1592 to the coast of the Varangian Sea - Varanger Bay. They report that "... .in Varenga during the German massacre,... to his glory, having brought a stone from the shore, there are now large fathoms high from the ground, and next to it, a city frame with twelve walls was laid out with stone, and that frame was called “Babylon...».

I came across these data, and others, in a fascinating article by a very curious author, known for his popular science books, which were also published by the Murmansk Book Publishing House, Candidate of Geographical Sciences B.I. Koshechkin, he called it “The Stone Mystery of the North”, published it in the popular science collection “Man and the Elements” in 1986.

Boris Ivanovich in his work provides data about the Russians who were involved in labyrinths. Among them, who earlier drew attention to spiral stone buildings, were ethnographer A.A. Kelsiev (1878) and E. Behr (1884). The latter in an article published in the bulletin of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, along with the labyrinth on the island. Vir in Finland described the spiral formations in Vilovataya Bay and near the mouth of the Ponoy River on the Kola Peninsula. Academician Ber was the first in Russian scientific literature to use the name “stone labyrinth”, which then entered into wide scientific circulation.

The first report on the stone labyrinths of the Russian North of Finland, says B.I. Koshechkin. “I met in the work of A.A. Spitsin, published back in 1904 on the pages of the Izvestia of the Archaeological Committee. Even then, the inquisitive mind of an archaeologist and a great connoisseur of northern antiquities noted some of the most important features of labyrinths: their location exclusively in Scandinavia and the Russian North, the method and type of construction similar to all structures, their undoubted connection with the culture of prehistoric times.”

Alexander Andreevich Spitsin is an academician, his assessments should be treated with all care. He left us major works on the archeology of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, on Slavic antiquities. And it is no coincidence that B.I. Koshechkin refers in his work to his authority.

And we will note in passing that people living near the labyrinths gave them a mystical character, trying not to widely advertise these structures that they did not understand. Let's say - “misunderstood”. And for us, now living in the 21st century. After all, science still does not give a concrete answer: how, what and why.

Over the years, the geography of labyrinths has expanded. The territory within which we find labyrinths today is very vast. About two hundred structures of this kind are included in the modern registers of ancient monuments in Sweden alone. Yes we have. Until recently, for example, two stone labyrinths were known in the Umba area, and recently we learned about a third.

So what are they?

The stone labyrinths, compiled by our ancestors in the North of Europe, stubbornly refuse to give up, do not want to reveal their secret. There are opinions that labyrinths have long been religious buildings. Incidentally, images in the form of similar labyrinths, in the form of spirals, were found on the floors of some early medieval churches in Sweden, and these spirals allegedly served to express certain Christian ideas.

Other researchers took a more pragmatic approach: they say that they are most likely connected with the sea and fishing. And another version: labyrinths are altars, giant altars left by some ancient people, they are associated with ideas about the transition of people to the world of the dead, made so that their souls lose orientation and can never return to the world of the living. Labyrinths in legends and tales turn out, according to such researchers, as a rule, to be entrances to the underground or otherworldly kingdom. They do not open to everyone, but only to those who know the spells or happen to be nearby at the moment the entrance unexpectedly opens.

Of great interest are the studies of archaeologist N.N. Vinogradov, expressed by him in the 20s of the XX century when he studied the labyrinths of the Solovetsky Islands. Like nowhere else in our country, on Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, dozens of mysterious labyrinths, stone piles and other Neolithic displays are presented in a small area. True, there are different opinions about their dating. Some of them, supposedly created in “new” times, for example, by order of Peter I when he visited Solovki, can be distinguished from the ancients.

The earlier the earth becomes an object of human activity, the more mysteries it holds for researchers. And, naturally, Neolithic structures on the shores of the Solovetsky archipelago, and in general, everywhere where labyrinths are located, are one of the mysteries of archeology. Maybe over time a person will unravel their essence? And in our time, such unusual hypotheses arise that you are amazed. When a physicist and satellite communications specialist was shown a drawing of a stone labyrinth and asked: “What is this?” - he answered without hesitation: “This is the classic form of wide-frequency transceiver antennas.” And one more thing. According to researchers, some labyrinths, especially the most ancient of them, are located on clear geomagnetic anomalies.

What is this? Accident? Or did the ancient inhabitants of those places know how to use geophysical fields to maintain communication with each other over vast distances? “Younger” labyrinths were built after the departure of the people themselves, replaced by new inhabitants who purely formally reproduced the shape of the spirals (?).

But one thing is certain. These labyrinths, or as the northerners call them - Babylons, for some reason named after the biblical city of Babylon (the capital of Babylonia in the 19th-6th centuries BC), served as a kind of landmark for the new flow of people who still inhabit our northern places. Examples? As many as you like! There is a labyrinth of the former village of Ponoy, there are several near Umba, there is a labyrinth near Kandalaksha, to the east of the mountain, which was called Krestovaya… (Beautiful).

By the way, for a very long time the local residents, the Pomors, knowing about its existence, kept information about this sacrament secret, keeping it from all kinds of strangers.

The first of the scientists to “discover” for science a wonderful monument of antiquity was Sergei Nikolaevich Durylin, a man who knew a lot and experienced a lot. He died in 1951, having survived both prison and exile. But he became a Doctor of Philology and received high state awards. In total he lived a little less than seventy years.

In the summer of 1911 S.N. Durylin and his friend, geologist and photographer Vsevolod Vladimirovich Razevig, went to the North “to look for all sorts of antiquities” on a business trip from the Archaeological Institute. He made his book “Beyond the Midnight Sun” a kind of report on this expedition. Across Lapland on foot and by boat,” published in Moscow in 1913. Here are lines from this book about our Kandalaksha:

« In ancient times there was a city here, called by the Norwegians... Kandelakhte, there was a monastery with a rich saltworks, there was a lively trade, where Norwegians, Swedes, Russians, Lapps, Finns converged, there were also battles - now here is a quiet village, and in it - eternal workers - fishermen . There are two beautiful wooden churches, harsh stone cliffs plunging into the sea, bearing traces of mysterious writings - in the ground, if you dig into it, you find pieces of mica - the remains of a long-vanished monastery - and there is nothing else that speaks of ancient life . But from here, through rivers and lakes, forests and swamps, there was the famous Novgorod path to the ocean, which was known back in the 12th century, and only in the depths of Lapland we realized how close that time was still - the twelfth century, how the noisy life.

High mountains press towards the sea, blue with coniferous forest. Spacious two-story huts cling to the banks of the Niva River and run up the mountain to the church...».

I.F. Ushakov, who did a lot to “read” the history of our region, says this about those times:

« Upon arrival in the village, Durylin asked the guide: “Where is your Babylon here?” The question was asked "at random". The peasants preferred not to tell any of the visitors about the existence of Babylon. But since the arrival already knows about it, he had to show the attraction» .

And even now we know little about labyrinths, or “Babylons,” as they are sometimes called, and even more so in the old days. After all, there is still no consensus among scientists. S.N. Durylin in his book cites several options that existed at that time.

In the decades since the journey of Beyond the Midnight Sun. Across Lapland on foot and by boat” Durylin, a lot, as they say, has flown under the bridge. Knowledge about labyrinths has expanded significantly. A lot of research has emerged. Theories were developed and died. And the further we go, the more clearly the cult, astral idea of ​​these buildings is determined, first of all. Oh, what scientific jungle scientists are leading into in connection with this direction! And very exciting. And interesting connections can be traced.

Arkhangelsk archaeologist A.A. Kurasov makes interesting observations. He finds spiral images similar to the plan of the northern labyrinths on Canossian silver coins (III-I centuries BC), on an Etruscan vase from Trigliatella (VI-V centuries BC), and on a stele in Pylos. As we see, stone labyrinths are similar to them. Isn’t it possible that the penetration of the most diverse cultures, both in time and in location, can be traced here?

And the point of view of N.N. Gurina, in her interesting book “Time Embedded in Stone,” attracts interest in the hypothesis: the labyrinths are confined to sea shores, their resemblance to fishing traps. This allowed her to suggest the possibility of using labyrinths “for magical purposes, that is, when performing some rituals that, according to ancient fishermen, contributed to good luck in fishing”...

One can bring up a variety of arguments from researchers of the most unusual directions and interpretations, comparing labyrinths with religious buildings in other regions of Europe. And among such structures is the famous Stonehenge in Southern England, and numerous cromlechs and dolmens. But I’m not going to analyze all these positions and trends - I’m just trying to stimulate interest in such a unique ancient monument of ours as a stone labyrinth, located in a single complex of life of our predecessors in the distant past - near the mountain called Krestovaya... We, the living in the Arctic, we always treat the Sun with more than respect. And let us remember that the image of the luminary, its veneration is sacred for all peoples, especially the northern ones. All of them - labyrinths, cromlechs, stonehenges, and others of this kind, emphasized the famous scientist N.M. Vinogradov, based on his knowledge, in particular the numerous Solovetsky labyrinths, have a rounded shape, which indicates a connection with the sun and in general with an astral cult. The circles of spiral and round labyrinths, and the arcs of horseshoe-shaped labyrinths indicate the annual movements of the sun, now rising and now falling below the horizon.

Let's read the lines of S.N. Durylina

Scientists argue a lot and express their points of view. And we will give the floor to Sergei Nikolaevich Durylin, who was the first to talk about the labyrinth. This is how he described it in 1913 in his book, which few people know or read. So, over to him...

“We have arrived at Babylon. It is three miles east of Kandalaksha, on a long narrow and low cape, with a tuft on the local “navolokka” that goes out into the sea. The toe is separated from the shore by a dry rocky shallow, which is covered with water during high tide. The toe is almost without any vegetation.

The labyrinth itself, “Babylon,” is located on rocky soil with barely wiggling grass. This is an irregularly shaped ellipse, an oval, with a diameter of -14 steps and a width of -10 steps. Entrance to the labyrinth is from the east; the opposite western side faces the sea. From small boulders, from fragments of collapsing granite, low (no higher than ¼ arshin) elliptical circles are laid out.

Between these circles there is a path, so narrow that you can only put one foot on it. There is only one entrance to this passage winding between the stones. In the center of the labyrinth is a low pile of stones.

From all edges of the maze there are 10 passages to this pile. Entering the narrow entrance, making three turns to the right and left, you quickly reach a stone heap in the center, but then the narrow path suddenly leads you to the left, then to the right - and you describe a huge circle along the outermost path, the longest. Having described this circle, you then describe - first moving away to the left, then to the right - the inner loop of the labyrinth. But the path, hitherto the only one, splits in two in front of you: where to go? If you take the path to the right, it will cause you to loop around the center of the maze, and you will end up back where you started, but on the left. If you choose the left road, it will also force you to describe a narrow loop around the center, leading again to the old place, but on the right. You will get lost. But you didn't have to pay attention to the forked path. Having passed along the left or right, returning to the crossroads, you must continue the path, follow the very path that led you to the crossroads, but in the opposite direction than you walked the first time; you will have to again describe the inner loop, a circle along the outermost path, then approach the center and, having described the innermost small loop near the center, go to the exit. All this becomes clear after studying the labyrinth, but on the way, wandering along the mysterious paths of the labyrinth, nothing is clear - and we get confused, me and the geologist, Mityushka gets confused (this is a Kandalakshka guide - E.R.), walking behind us, and P He chuckles on the sidelines.

We ask: what does Babylon mean and why? He doesn’t know the word labyrinth...

(Note by Author Durylev: on Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, which belongs to the group of Solovetsky Islands, I also observed the Babylons, laid out, according to the monk’s explanation, by Peter the Great.) Who laid out these bizarre cunning passages, this labyrinth, and for what purpose? There is no answer to this question yet.

...Despite the northern winds, storms and rains, which seem so easy to scatter or carry away the small stones of the labyrinths, which are always located in open places, the labyrinths are well preserved and their bizarre paths are still clear.

What can be said about their origin and the purposes for which they were established?

Of all the existing explanations given by archaeological science, there is not a single one that is completely reliable; all are contradictory and mutually exclusive.

The Russian scientist, academician Berg, who first discovered the northern labyrinths in the first half of the last century, thought that they were monuments of historical events. The Finnish archaeologist Aspelin, who studied the labyrinths more than anyone else, on the contrary, dates them back to an undoubtedly more ancient time - the Bronze Age. Our archaeologists Kondakov and Ya. Smirnov put them in connection with those labyrinths that were arranged in the Middle Ages in the form of patterns on the floors of churches. Some attribute the labyrinths of the north to Christian times, others to pagan times. But no one can say to what custom they belong, what they served; it is difficult to decide for what pagan ritual the labyrinths could have served. The Lapps with whom we had to deal say that there are no labyrinths in their country.

In Finland, labyrinths have different names, more and more the names of glorious cities: Jericho, Nineveh, Jerusalem, Lisbon; In Lapland, all labyrinths have only one name: Babylon. But this name must be written with a small letter, because it has become a common noun for labyrinths.

To explain the Russian name for labyrinths - “Babylon”, it is interesting to remember that in popular speech there is everywhere the expression “to write Babylons” - i.e. especially cunning, tangled circles, “embroidered with Babylons” - i.e. embroidered with particularly intricate patterns; Babylon, according to various concepts, is something cunning, confusing, intricate.

Babylon is closely associated with the sea.

This raises a natural assumption: aren’t the northern labyrinths monuments of pagan beliefs related specifically to the sea and dangerous sea crafts? Labyrinths are found exclusively in countries that in ancient times had and still have a vital connection with the sea - in Scandinavia, Finland, coastal Lapland, the White Sea region, Murman.

To this day, the population of these countries preserves a number of superstitions and rituals related to the sea. Of the Christian customs related to the sea, the custom of setting up a cross to ask God for a favorable voyage is ubiquitous in the Russian north. How many such crosses are there on Zayatsky Island, how many of them are there along the shores of the ocean and the White Sea! Didn't this Christian custom replace some pagan rite, which also related to the sea and associated with the labyrinth, and the labyrinth was always considered in ancient times a place of purification and redemption, a voluntary sacrifice? Perhaps the crosses on Zayatsky Island only replaced labyrinths, of which there are not many left on this island?

After all, just recently in Murman there was a completely pagan ritual of praying to the wind, on which everything at sea, life and death, depends. Perhaps, someone who went through all the passages of the labyrinth and came out of there without getting lost, having made a sacrifice, was considered pure and could not be afraid of sea misadventures and obstacles, storms and rocks, just as he was not afraid of losing the right path in a cunning labyrinth?

But all these are just assumptions, and the cunning patterns of northern Babylons, made of gray ancient stones, under gloomy clouds or the never-setting sun, look at us with an unsolved mystery to this day.”

...Sorry for such a long quote, it seems to me that it creates a certain mood about the unusual structure in the bay, which is called Maly Pitkul near the passage to O. Small Berezovy, which becomes an island only at high tides, and at low tides it is an isthmus connecting the mainland coast with this very Small Berezov Island.

And now even the very place where the labyrinth is located reveals a kind of “secret”. Located almost next to the city, it is fortunately located away from the roads - roads that are not very frequented. And fortunately for us, it has survived so far.

(Kandalaksha: “The ABC of History” Our memory. Efim Fedorovich Razin)

To be continued....

Archaeological antiquities of the Voronezh land

Prehistory

In 1957, the Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of P.D. Liberova discovered the Mostishchenskoye settlement for science. It, judging by small excavations on this archaeological site, was created in the early Iron Age, in Scythian times. Then, due to the lack of finds to date the monument, the period of activity of the fortified village was determined incorrectly. At a later time, when the site was excavated over a wide area, the time was determined more precisely - the end of the 5th or the turn of the 6th - and until the end of the 4th century. BC.

Labyrinths of Europe and Mostishchensky labyrinth

Stone labyrinths and other stone structures are well known in Northern Europe, in England, in the Mediterranean, Sweden, Denmark, in the north of our country in Karelia and near the White Sea, in the North Caucasus. They are complex structures made of stone of different layouts and designs in the form of concentric circles and ellipses.

There is an opinion about the builders of these structures - the tribes that lived in the Pyrenees. For some reason they moved along the Atlantic coast to the shores of the North Sea. Their traces are noted on the territory of present-day Germany - on the Rhine and Elbe. And about 900 stone structures were created in the British Isles.

Among specialists who have studied and are studying labyrinths, over time, an idea has developed about the religious purpose of these objects. As has now been found out, the labyrinths were also ancient observatories from which observations of celestial bodies and calculations of solar and lunar eclipses were carried out. The time of their creation is Neolithic - Chalcolithic. The construction of huge stone structures lasted almost 3000 years, from the 5th to the 2nd millennium BC. But there are much more mysteries of stone giants than answers: who built them, how, why?

At the Mostishchenskoye settlement, the labyrinth had the shape of an oval, built of chalk stones. The stones are laid out on the turf, on level ground. The structure itself consists of six ring-shaped masonry. They are badly damaged, but in general the approximate size can be established. If you count from the outer boundaries of the masonry, then its dimensions will be as follows: 26 x 38 m. The ellipse is stretched along the northeast–southwest line. Later, it was largely destroyed when the tribes of the Scythian era began to use the location of the labyrinth and its stones for their construction needs. But nevertheless, the main forms of the stone labyrinth are captured.

There were hopes that during excavations the burials of the priests who served the labyrinth would be discovered. And when several burials without grave goods stretched out on their backs were found on its square, it seemed that the wait was not in vain. Alas... In the next burial, an iron short sword of the Scythian time was discovered, and it became clear that these burials belonged to the inhabitants of the Scythian time.

A.T. Sinyuk draws attention to the fact that fragments of ceramics from the Abashevo and Catacomb cultures were found at the site of the labyrinth. At the same time, Abashevo ceramics, in his opinion, are early, like the catacomb ones. Does this indicate him? If the researcher’s assumption is correct, then we can assume the joint use of a stone labyrinth by Bronze Age tribes. According to A.T. Sinyuk, the structure existed for one or two centuries during the turn of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

But that's all that can be said about the labyrinth itself. There were attempts to prove its astronomical role with the help of the finds of several granite stones at the site. In accordance with this, calculations were made for the sunrise points on the days of the winter and summer solstice, autumn and spring equinox. But the severe destruction of the monument, the possibility of the origin of granite stones from Scythian times, the accident of their location exactly where they are found in our time, so far reduces these attempts to zero. In addition, there are other granite stones on the monument, in other places, which are not included in the calculation.

The uniqueness of the Mostishchensky labyrinth has led to a cautious attitude towards it. Until now, scientists prefer to remain silent about this discovery, probably doubting its reality. This is the fate of everything new, the approval of which requires time or... a second similar labyrinth...

Roads of millennia

In the study of the ideology and social structure of the ancient Don tribes, unexpected results for last years brought excavations near the Mostishche farm in the Ostrogozhsky district.

If you climb the middle of the three high chalk capes, hanging in a semicircle over the farm, and turn to face it, you will see a rare panorama in its geographical context - a valley formed by the confluence of the floodplains of three rivers at once: Potudan, Devitsa and Don. From here, in clear weather, you can see open spaces to the north for tens of kilometers! The view of the area to the west and east is almost as wide. The location was amazing, allowing it to control a large area with beautiful pastures, hunting and fishing grounds, as well as waterways in all directions.

Our distant ancestors could not help but appreciate such a place. A clear proof of this is the remains of defensive fortifications of the Scythian period on two capes. Will there be signs of human habitation in an earlier period? It was for this purpose that excavations were undertaken on the central (Mostishche 1) and northwestern (Oastishche 2) capes. And our expectations were met. At the first of the monuments, along with the usual finds for Scythian times, fragments of vessels of the Ivano-Bugorsk type and the catacomb culture began to be found (as we already know, to a certain extent synchronous). The attention was immediately drawn to the chalk stones with which the cultural layer was saturated. The fact is that building stone has not yet been found in settlements of either the Bronze Age or the Scythian era in the Middle Don.

Excavations became more careful: every stone had to be preserved in place. And finally, the upper platform of the cape was freed from soil layers, and the ruins of stonework stood out in relief against the background of the mainland! The masonry was preserved only in fragments; it was repeatedly destroyed both in the Bronze Age and in the Early Iron Age.

And yet, an irrefutable argument in favor of the ancient age of the structure was obtained. Excavations on the neighboring cape also revealed the remains of stonework (though not circular, as at Mostishche 1, but rectangular). They were accompanied by fragments of Ivano-Bugorsk and catacomb vessels, and not a single cutting from a later time!
Now we have facts at our disposal that allow us to connect the remains of stone structures of both monuments with the Ivano-Bugorsk population (the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC and somewhat later).

Since the excavations were completed quite recently and there is a lot of work ahead to understand their results, we will only present in the most general terms the design of the Mastishta 1 settlement (Fig. 40). It includes a round central platform made of stone pavement and six concentric elliptical rings surrounding it, between which in some cases lintels are fixed. Both rings and lintels consist of stones laid out without special adjustment and without any binding solution. Their maximum height did not exceed half a meter in ancient times; the larger diameter of the outer ring along the west-east line reaches 40 meters. Let us make a reservation once again that only the ruins of a structure have reached us, which in its original form was architecturally more complex and systematic. But what has survived to this day leaves no doubt: these are the remains<мегалитического>religious buildings. It can be called a sanctuary, a labyrinth.

Megalithic structures are widely known in the scientific world - grandiose monuments of the past, scattered along the European coast of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Megaliths are large carved stones weighing several tons. They were often placed on the end or dug in in the form of multi-meter pillars, and were fastened on top by laying the same blocks. Megaliths were used in the construction of the most various forms, including ring-shaped ones in the form of ellipses. For the same purposes, stones of much smaller sizes were used. The age of the structures is from four thousand years or more, and some were erected long before the appearance of the pyramids of Egypt!

For many years, the stone rings of Stonehenge in Southern England have attracted particular attention from scientists. Many books have been written about this monument, but the study of its design and the hidden meaning about it continues to this day. Scientists were able to establish that such monuments were mostly used as tombs, but also have symbolic meaning: all kinds of religious ceremonies and meetings of widely scattered communities from the surrounding areas took place here. Finally, Stonehenge turned out to be not only a sanctuary for ritual ceremonies, but also a huge astronomical observatory, which may have been able to predict solar and lunar eclipses!

Readers have the right to ask, what do Stonehenge have in common with the very modest-sized Mostishchensky masonry?

Indeed, external comparison is not in favor of the latter. But if we do not take into account the size and architectural techniques, but pay attention to the semantic purpose of the Don structure, won’t we see similar signs? After all, the Mostishchensky labyrinth is also not an industrial building or a dwelling. Only single specimens of vessels and bone remains were found in the labyrinth, and no traces of the production of tools and household utensils, no remains of dwellings, no utility pits. This is on an excavated monument area of ​​more than 2000 square meters! The monument, strictly speaking, was not a place of residence of ancient people, that is, a settlement. The finds of vessels, as well as animal and fish bones, are quite consistent with the sites of ritual ceremonies. Structures in the form of stone labyrinths are known both on the White Sea coast of our country and in a number of northern European countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, etc.). Some of them, differing from the Don in smaller sizes, methods of laying stones and individual structural details, are similar in the presence of concentric circles. But, as has been established, the northern labyrinths reflect the same ideas that prompted the construction of the megalithic rings! Nowadays, few people doubt the cult purpose of the labyrinths: they were certainly sanctuaries. True, no traces of a tomb were found in the complex of Mastnshchensky buildings, but it may be somewhere nearby and for it, the usual ritual of placing remains in the ground was provided for in the Don Eneolithic.

So, for the first time for such an early time (the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC) in central Russia, a sanctuary in the form of a stone labyrinth was discovered, reflecting the pan-European ideology of the period of construction of megalithic structures. What is the specific content of this ideology, what are its constituent links - a question that, apparently, will be resolved only in the future.

The Don Labyrinth could also be the center of a wide area where important public events were held. Consequently, the ideas underlying the construction of such structures were much more widespread than hitherto thought. In addition, the question is legitimate: were all sanctuaries made of stone? It could be that, given the scarcity of its reserves (which is different in our region), the sanctuaries were built from turf or bulk earth, and it is almost impossible to discover them today.

Finally, could the Don labyrinth combine the functions of a sanctuary and a device for observing celestial bodies? We do not rule out a positive answer, but more research is needed. Our optimism is based on the fact that the time has come to decisively reject existing historical prejudices and re-evaluate their creative potential in favor of ancient societies. This fully applies to the Bronze Age.

Sources

• Berezutsky V.D., Zolotarev P.M. - Archaeological antiquities of the Voronezh land - M.: Bratishka, 2007.
• Vinnikov A.Z., Sinyuk A.T. - On the roads of millennia: Archaeologists about ancient history Voronezh region. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - Voronezh: Voronezh State University Publishing House, 2003.

I read about the fact that in the Voronezh region there is a stone labyrinth, built at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC (!!!), on a local forum back in the winter and, of course, noted this circumstance in Plans.txt. Little by little, I collected the necessary minimum information to try to find him and was only waiting for the right set of circumstances to immediately rush off to find him.

And so, on May 9, 2010, when the entire public, including the legion of LJ photographers who later flooded my feed with sad pictures from military parades, were bruised and jostling on the main city streets, I and my eternal partner in all sorts of adventures, Lyokha, decided, on the contrary, to leave on this day, somewhere far away, or better yet, in the absolute wilderness. After purchasing provisions, we got out of the city in Lyokhin’s old “five” and headed for.

01 . The Ostrogozhskaya highway is indecently picturesque, empty and almost uncontrolled by the valiant traffic police. Every 5-10 km I had to fight the urge to stop and take a photo of something. But ahead, according to my forecasts, something completely prohibitive awaited us and therefore we flew to our intended goal without stopping. Until we saw the horse.
( Place on the world map )

02 . Look, you were too lazy to follow the link above and see where exactly we met such a crazy horse, and yet it’s even visible on Google Maps (!). Therefore, here is another warrior’s shoulder portrait. The model has a runny nose, don't pay attention.

03 . This, if you still haven’t followed the link, is the village of Devitsa. More precisely, its very outskirts.
( Place on the world map )

04 . Another native, but still unknown to Google.

05 . There is a small river called Potudan behind the trees.
Its section from the village of Soldatskoye to the confluence with the Don is called the Mordva tract and is considered one of the most beautiful places in the Don region.
( Place on the world map )

06 . The meadows are flooded, every now and then we go around wet areas, but in the end we get stuck. I curse the hordes of man-eating mosquitoes and the rear-wheel drive in the AvtoVAZ design, but somehow I push the “five” out of the puddle. Ufff....

07 . The Mostishche farmstead, in the vicinity of which a stone labyrinth was discovered by archaeologists, is literally one and a half kilometers away. We decide to push our way further. Fighting off mosquitoes, I chewed in front of the car, choosing places on dry land. Suddenly a whole field of bells appeared around.

08 . It just so happened that before that I had only seen bells in pictures, so their presence, of course, brightened up my experience as a navigator a little.
( Place on the world map )

09 . And here is a new ambush. The bridge over Potudan, marked in the navigator as operational, was in fact in a state of disrepair.
( Place on the world map )

10 . Local men who came to fish reported that no one had been driving along it for a long time and there was another road to the farm. I was categorically against it and suggested returning through the bells and swamps, but Lyokha decides to force the bridge. Below you can watch a short video of how it happened. Lyokha is driving, I am in charge of the operation, the men are stupidly shocked. Pardon me for the shaking (the camera was just hanging around my neck), the trembling voice and the swearing - it was really annoying that we would accidentally drown the car.

11 . To catch our breath a little and let the jerk cool down, we wandered around the bridge. According to legend, Potudan was the border north of which the Tatars did not collect tribute. Hence the name, which means that on the other side of the river it is necessary to make money.

12 . By the way, this river gave its name to Andrei Platonov’s story “The Potudan River”, which was later used in the film “The Lonely Voice of a Man”. And some researchers also believe that it was on the banks of the Potudan that the battle between the Russians and the Polovtsy took place, described in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and that the Potudan is the ancient Kayala River. Why not believe it, I think, especially since there is such nonsense around.
( Place on the world map )

13 . Beaver traces.
Sometime in the fall I visited, those interested can familiarize themselves.

14 . And finally, we enter the farm. It is almost entirely abandoned and mainly consists of these ancient abandoned huts.
( Place on the world map )

15 . Not only the signs with house numbers have been surprisingly preserved...

16 . ...But also with street names.

17 . There are houses that are newer, if such a synonym can be applied to the Mostishchensky huts, but, for the most part, they are also uninhabited.

18 . We begin to circle around the village in search of the subject. I incorrectly interpret the information I have about the labyrinth and confuse it with an abandoned vegetable garden. The fact is that after excavations by archaeologists, the locals decided to steal ancient stones for their own household needs. The people of science scratched their heads and came up with nothing better than to cover their find with a thick layer of soil again.
( Place on the world map )

19 . There is a version that the labyrinth “works” to this day and is an active place of power and harmonizer environment. There is a giant dill growing in the garden and there is no cell phone reception, so for a while I am sure that we are wandering right above the maze.

20 . Later it turns out that I poked my finger at the navigator too schematically and we wander around the garden, and giant dill is very common and is called fennel.

21 . We decide to climb the mountain familiar to you from the two previous photographs, but we take the wrong direction and again end up on the damp banks of Potudan.
( Place on the world map )

22 . We understand that we have lost our way, we begin to turn around and get involved in full. It’s not exactly a swamp around, but the bald tires don’t want to somehow adhere to the damp ground. I’m starting to fume, because it’s no longer possible to push the car out in one person, the branches aren’t helping either, and now Lyokha starts putting shoes on the “five” in the chain.

23 . He invites me to wait and see how playfully he will get out of the ambush as soon as he finishes his installation. Having calmed down a little, I begin to while away the time by photographing all sorts of hats. Here, for example, is a tinder fungus.

24 . Suddenly (in such and such a wilderness) a man on a motorcycle from photo number 9 smokes past. He asks me if he needs help, I honestly answer that I don’t know. Like, the driver said that now everything will be in the best possible way without any outside help. Luckily for us, the man still remains to gawk at the free circus, and Alexey gives the gas, then the gas, and then the burning and the surrounding reality is clouded with white smoke. When it dissipates, the man and I already see the “five” taking up all-round defense in a freshly dug trench. Alexey climbs out and reports that he forgot to put down the handbrake. I say that he himself is this word and with forces increased tenfold by this stressful situation and, of course, with the help of a man, I still push the “five” onto the dried soil. In the picture below, Lyokha is already washing his loins and miracle chains in the river. Left. About five meters.
( Place on the world map )

25 . Here, perhaps, it’s time to make a lyrical digression and tell us what kind of labyrinth this is. It was discovered in the late 1980s. Similar stone structures are well known in England (the rings of Stonehenge, for example), Sweden, Denmark, the Mediterranean, as well as in the north of Russia, Karelia and off the coast of the White Sea. All the more surprising is the presence of such a megalithic structure in central Russia. To date, this is the only archaeological find of this kind in our latitudes. The Mostishchensky labyrinth has the shape of an oval measuring 26 by 38 meters, built of chalk stones. As to who and why erected such stone sanctuaries, science does not yet have an exact answer. And the uniqueness of the Mostishchensky labyrinth, it seems, has generally plunged scientists into a state of cognitive dissonance and they prefer to remain largely silent even about its existence. Below is a picture of what archaeologists managed to unearth. Please note that in some sources the farmstead is called M A articulation, and the labyrinth, respectively, M A Stishchensky.

26 . And we continue our search.
The farm, as can be seen below, is located between chalk capes (mountains). We climb onto one of them.
( Place on the world map )

27 . On the right hand of this place, as far as I understand (alas, I’m already at home) is the Mostishchensky labyrinth. Do you see a power pole? It's somewhere there.

28 . In wet weather, climbing up by car is almost impossible. Look at the angle of descent/ascent and what holes are being washed away by the water rushing down. By the way, this is the other road to the Mostishche farm that the fishermen told us about. If you continue to drive along it, it will lead through fields to the large village of Korotoyak.

29 . On the neighboring hill, stone structures were also discovered, but not in the shape of an ellipse, but rectangular. I repeat that I compiled in my brain what I had read and seen when I was already at home, and at that moment, having climbed up and suddenly seeing a picturesque drive up the next hill, I concluded that the most interesting thing would be there and we decided to go back down the washed-out road and try to climb there along an overgrown dirt road. By the way, this place is called Mount Gorodishche, because an ancient settlement, excuse the tautology, was also discovered on it. Naturally not as ancient as the labyrinth, but still.
( Place on the world map )

30 . We slide down (poor “five”!), meander around the farmstead a little and crawl onto Gorodishche. According to our internal routine, it’s long past lunch time. Lyokha begins to prepare for the meal, and I suddenly find a pile of stones. Naturally, I begin to suspect the locals that they have dug into the labyrinth and are dismantling it for their own worthless aboriginal needs or even selling stones to companies that trade in landscape design.

31 . Suddenly the sky darkens and it becomes obvious that rain, or even a thunderstorm, is surely approaching. Remembering the fishermen’s warning about the subsequent impassability of the descents and ascents, we quickly collected the gear that had been laid out, retreated in horror and rushed non-stop to the nearest asphalt in the area of ​​​​the mentioned Korotoyak. We nervously have lunch in the car - it’s still starting to rain. We decide to move towards our native land, but along the way a wondrously beautiful panorama opens up to us. We stop. Somewhere on the left there is the village of Mostishche. The photo shows that it is raining steadily there.

32 . Something turns white behind the tree and I slide down the wet grass closer to the cliff. This is a chalk cliff, slightly gnawed by the aborigines.

33 . A look along the Don riverbed in the direction of Mostishche.
Lepota - the thunderstorm leaves, but the sunset begins.
( Place on the world map )

34 . Sliding, we crawl up to the car. The rain is still drizzling and the power lines are humming strainedly about this. The brain too. Time to go home.

There are five of them on the Kandalaksha and Tersky shores of the White Sea: Kandalaksha, located on Cape Pitkulsky Navolok on absolute altitude 3.4 m a.s.l., Umbinskie (large and small) - on Cape Anninsky Krest, 90 m west of Toni Udarnik at an altitude of 6.6 m a.s.l. and two Ponoiskie labyrinths.

The study of these objects on the coasts of the White and Barents Seas, as well as in Sweden, Norway, Finland showed that the “Trojan cities”, with very rare exceptions, were built in close proximity to the ancient coastline(high tide lines) and were never flooded by the sea.

Some labyrinths are located next to other archaeological sites (primitive sites, prehistoric burials), where quartz scrapers and staples, arrowheads made of slate, fragments of asbestos ceramics, and rare fragments of vessels decorated with ornaments were found. The finds of these artifacts were associated with the so-called “Arctic Neolithic culture,” which refers to the time interval V-I thousand. years BC (Gurina, 1953), which allowed archaeologists to compare the age of the Kola labyrinths precisely with the Neolithic era and estimate it at 3-4 thousand years.

There is no clear answer yet to the question regarding the purpose of the stone labyrinths of the Kola region, but it is known that they are all connected with the sea and are confined to places rich in fish. It is reliably known that the Kola labyrinths were never flooded by the sea. Based on this, it is possible to determine the maximum age of these archaeological objects by relating them to the position of sea level at one time or another. A similar approach to estimating the age of Scandinavian labyrinths allowed foreign researchers (Kern, 2007) to significantly adjust it towards rejuvenation.

The work carried out at the Geological Institute of the KSC RAS ​​to study the late post-glacial movement of the sea coastline makes it possible to determine its altitudinal position on the coast at one time or another, i.e., using geological methods to establish the age of the coastline at the height at which the labyrinth is located, as is the maximum possible age of the stone labyrinth (Kolka, Korsakova, 2010). For this purpose, we used data from a study of the movement of the sea coastline in the late Holocene at the top of Kandalaksha Bay and in the area of ​​the village. Lesozavodsky on its southern bank. According to these data, the age of the Kandalaksha labyrinth cannot be more than 918-1000 calendar years, and during the “Arctic Neolithic” the surface with an absolute elevation of 3.4 m, on which the Kandalaksha labyrinth is located, should have been at a depth of approximately 11 m below modern sea level.

There are two ways to get to the labyrinth:

By car - exit from observation deck(route marked in red)

On foot - through the "Japan" microdistrict, thanks to which you can see what Kandalaksha was like several centuries ago. And then along the rocky shore with beautiful views of the White Sea (route marked in yellow). ()

Prepared based on materials from Kolka V.V., Korsakova O.P., Nikolaeva S.B.