In 2002, Russian scientists confirmed the possibility of the artificial origin of Sekirnaya Mountain. Although the rise is based on glacial deposits, there is reason to believe that from above it is indeed supplemented by artificial embankments
The highest mountain of the Solovetsky archipelago is Sekirnaya (its second name is Chudova Gora). The name "Sekirnaya" is associated with a legend about a miracle that happened here: two angels at the foot of the mountain whipped the wife of a Pomor, who fished and mowed hay on the Solovetsky Islands, but did not allow the monks to do it. The name allegedly comes from the word "flogged".
Here is what the author of the famous dictionary of the Pomor language "Pomorsk Speaking", a member of the presidium of the Arkhangelsk regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments Ivan MOSEEV says about this:
- The name of Mount Sekirnaya should have come not from the word "cut", but from - "ax "(Medieval battle ax). It turns out that the angels had to mark the Pomor's wife to death not with whips, but with battle axes.
- You are a supporter of the version of the artificial origin of the Sekirnaya Mountain. Why?
- The islands of the Solovetsky archipelago are flat, as if ironed out by a glacier. High mountains look like artificial formations on them. On Bolshoy Solovetsky Island, Mount Sekirnaya (or Sekirka) is the highest, its height is almost 100 meters. The huge sand and stone embankments of the Solovetsky Mountains were first described by local historians in the 30s of the twentieth century. But scientists could not explain where such a high mountain could appear on the flat islands. It was assumed that Sekirka was partly created by a glacier and partly a pyramid of boulders, which was built several millennia ago by ancient people who inhabited the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the White Sea.
In 2002, Russian scientists confirmed the possibility of the artificial origin of Sekirnaya Mountain. Although the rise is based on glacial deposits, there is reason to believe that from above it is indeed supplemented by artificial embankments.
- If the ancient Solovetsky mountain is a pyramid, where does it get its original Russian name? Why did the monks need such a strange legend about the angels?
- There are doubts that the name of the mountain was originally Slavic. After all, the word "Solovki", though consonant with "nightingales", has nothing to do with them: nightingales have never been found beyond the Arctic Circle. The monks used the legend about the angels as "proof" that the Solovetsky Island should belong to the monastery, and not to the native inhabitants.
In fact, archaeologists have confirmed that the Solovetsky archipelago, thousands of years before the arrival of the first monks, belonged to the inhabitants of the White Sea region. The Novgorodians called these White Sea tribes "Chudyu", and the local peoples, the Nenets, called "Sikirtya".
- What does the name of the people "sikhirta" mean, what did it have to do with the pyramid embankments?
- A mention of the Sikitri people is found in the "Tale of Bygone Years". Translated from the ancient language, "skrt" or "skrt" is an elongated artificial embankment. The word "rick" has the same root. Skirda is an elongated artificial hay mountain. But the stack may not only be made of hay, so a version arose that the “skird” is a form of a primitive prehistoric bulk dwelling, like a giant stack of grass, moss and branches in which our ancient ancestors lived. The same ancient root "skrt" is in the word "hide". After all, the main function of a home is to hide from the cold and wild animals. The people who lived in such primitive dwellings were called herders, and in the north, sikirt.
The first chronicles of the Novgorodians about the Donenets cave population of the north (the Nenets came to the territory of the Pechora tundra from beyond the Ural ridge only in the 13-14th centuries) confirm that the tribes who lived there did not know iron and lived in caves.
- But in the flat Pechora tundra, there are practically no mountains in which today you can find such caves, and even so that cave people could live in them …
- Such "mountains" of the ancient cave people could only be artificial embankments-dwellings - huge houses-ricks made of peat and moss. Then it is understandable why, after a thousand years, practically nothing remained of them - they turned into ordinary small hills among the flat landscape of the tundra. Periodically, archaeologists find traces of the Donenets civilization in the tundra - bronze and stone tools, ornaments.
- And there are no traces of the dwellings of the Sikitra people?
- Remained: even in the 19th century, Academician Lepekhin wrote: “The entire Samoyed land in the present Mezen district is filled with desolate dwellings of a certain people. They are found in many places, near lakes on the tundra and in forests near rivers, made in mountains and hills like caves with holes like a beast. Stoves are found in these caves and fragments of iron, copper and clay household items are found. As for the stone fill mountains, like Sekirnaya, these are no longer houses made of peat and moss for living people, but houses of the dead, pyramids made of stones.
Thus, the stone mountains on Solovki are nothing more than monuments of an ancient civilization. Our researchers have a lot of work to do to study the history hidden in the earth.
Anatoly RUKSHA
"Courier of the White Sea" 19 (166)