In 1873, a stone church was built in the town of Romanov, Goretsky district, Mogilev province. Stones for this purpose were brought from the vicinity. One stone from the village of Pnevishcha, a pyramidal granite boulder with strongly rounded edges, slightly flattened at the top, with incomprehensible signs carved on it from both sides by some iron tool. It was about a meter long, two-thirds of a meter wide and high, and weighed about 500 kg.
A lover of antiquity, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Dondukov-Korsakov, became interested in the stone, who acquired it and transported it in 1874 to his estate in Smolensk.
The village of Pnevishcha is located at the small stream Lyubosvizh, which flows into the Ramushevka river, and this last, at a distance of five versts from the village of Pnevishcha, flows into the Pronya river, which, in turn, flows into the Dnieper river.
On behalf of A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov's manager, the nobleman Ponyatovsky, carefully examined the area where the stones were found, and removed the plan presented above from it.
It turned out that in the vicinity of the village, in the fields, not a single stone could be found, and those that were brought by the peasants, weighing about 33 tons, lay in one heap, covered with earth and bushes. The conclusion suggests itself that these stones were brought here in very ancient times specifically for the construction of a stone mound, on top of which a boulder with an inscription was installed.
In Smolensk, Prince A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov showed the stone to the nobleman Solovtsev, who lived for several years in the Arkhangelsk province and saw the so-called "runic inscriptions" on the Murmansk coast. Solovtsev recognized the similarities between the runic signs and the signs on the Pneumish stone.
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In August 1874, the third Archaeological Congress was held in Kiev, which was attended by Prince A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov. Since he could not bring the stone to the congress, due to its cumbersomeness, he removed a drawing of the inscription from it, which he showed to the congress participants, and also invited everyone to examine the stone on the spot.
Among the congress participants there was not a single scientist familiar with the runic inscriptions. Only Dr. G. Wankel, a certain scientist from Moravia, became interested in the stone and wished to see it.
On August 24, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, Wankel came to A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov, examined the stone that stood in the coach shed, removed the drawing from it and left.
And one hour later, after the doctor's departure, hay caught fire in the attic of a neighboring house and all the outbuildings of A. M.'s estate burned to the ground. Dondukov-Korsakov, including the shed with all the crews and the Pnevishchensky stone, which split into small pieces due to the high temperature.
So this mysterious monument of Ancient Rus disappeared, from which only drawings made by two different people remained.
Dondukov-Korsakov never tried to publish information about the stone. After his death, in 1916, his relatives published an article in a local collection, but the publication remained unnoticed by the scientific community - the First World War was going on, an era of great social upheavals began …
Options for decoding the inscriptions on the Pnevishchensky stone:
“Monument to Baal. Here we gouged it out (carved it out)”- translation by A. Müller, a librarian from the Moravian town of Olmütz. He read the inscription in "Semitic writing." Only it is not clear how the monument to one of the main Phoenician gods ended up near Smolensk.
"And the city rule (s) the outfit of Odari now the Shchek clan, to (oi) could squeeze (s) the company a //" and on the other side: "Here is the prince's speech yes (l)." - this is a translation of the modern writer and amateur historian Mikhail Seryakov, he read the inscription in the Indian Brahmi syllabic alphabet. The translation into Russian sounds like this: “(When will I die?) To keep order (option: device). (God?) Now give the Shchek clan, which could defend justice (option: an oath), and … Here he gave a speech to the prince. " This interpretation looks too free and far-fetched. Since it is believed that once there was a prince's burial near the village of Pnevishcha, and the last will of the prince was allegedly carved on it. However, there was no hail nearby to keep order.
“In summer, the night of dalog. Into the night! "," Into the night you be in your backwater, and cut its fish, take it, carry it and eat it! " - this translation was provided by the famous amateur epigraphist Valery Chudinov. The expediency of such a monumental correspondence, which two petty thieves carry on "long summer nights", having chosen such an incredibly laborious method for this, raises doubts.
"Polianchi, wear fish here", "Ino rabbi: fight in the slaughterhouse, and children, fish and fish" - the last known reading of the inscription on the Pnevishchensky stone was suggested by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of Moscow State Pedagogical University Yuri Akashev in the book "History of the People Ros. From Aryans to Slavs. " He received this text on the basis of the method of reading the Slavic writing of the type of "features and cuts", developed by the famous epigraphist GS Grinevich (1938-2017). If we translate the text received by Akashev into Russian, then we learn that the glades were ordered to bring fish (fish products) here, to this place, to the core during the time of the field. And the slaves, in addition, had to supply the prince with armed warriors and young servants, as well as fish, harviz and game.
Mikhail Budnikov