Evidence has been obtained that a settlement existed on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin even before the arrival of the Slavs: during excavations in the Great Kremlin Square, fragments of ceramics related to the Dyakovo culture were found.
Dyakovskaya culture is an archaeological culture of the early Iron Age that existed from the 7th century BC to the 5th century AD in the forest belt of Eastern Europe. It got its name from the Dyakov settlement near the village of Dyakovo (now it is the territory of the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve). It is assumed that the carriers of this culture belonged to the Finno-Ugric ethno-linguistic community.
Fragments of ceramics, made without a potter's wheel, were found in the Kremlin earlier, but there were very few of them. However, now a large number of shards have been found, and this means that there was a permanent settlement here, says Nikolai Makarov, director of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In his opinion, the shards were found due to the fact that during the construction of the foundations of the Prikazov building, the deposits lying below were raised. Therefore, archaeologists were able to obtain pottery of the early Iron Age, without going deep to the level where it was originally located.
Also, archaeologists during excavations came to the fragments of a wooden structure. It is not yet very clear what it is: traces of street paving or a building that was here even before the time of Ivan the Terrible.
Excavations on the territory of the Moscow Kremlin will continue: on September 6, Vladimir Putin instructed to study the possibility of expanding the area of archaeological excavations in the Grand Kremlin Square outside the discovered Prikazov building, as well as to consider organizing excavations between the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Church of the Twelve Apostles.
Author: Vyacheslav Klimov
