Since ancient times, the Zaporozhye island of Khortitsa was considered a sacred place. Historians say that the first written mention of our island dates back to the middle of the 10th century. It is also noted here that it was previously called the island of St. George / Gregory, on which there is a sacred oak, and near it there is a pagan sanctuary.
Khortitsa sanctuaries, of which there are at least ten today, often served not only as a place for performing rituals, worshiping deities, but also as convenient objects for observing nature: the time of day, year, the behavior of the sun and moon, calculating favorable conditions for agriculture, etc. …
Many archaeological finds of such places on the island, as well as potential objects that have not yet been found, confirm the spiritual, sacred purpose of Khortitsa, namely, the fact that people did not use its land for domestic purposes, but rather for spiritual development and observation. Thus, the island was a kind of cultural and spiritual center, combining different eras, nationalities and cultures.
ReporterUA was told about Khortytsya sanctuaries in the National Reserve.
- Apparently, the mystical power of Khortitsa has been known since very ancient times, and this is confirmed by interesting finds, in particular, very interesting cult complexes, which also belong to an earlier time - not Slavic, but Scythian. However, the most interesting are the sanctuaries of the Bronze Age, which are very unusually represented on Khortytsya. So, if traditional sanctuaries are located on mounds, then on the island there are a lot of objects made of stone at the level of the ancient surface, archaeologists say, noting that these stones are not located by chance, but as if marking certain points from which it was convenient to conduct observations behind solar or lunar cycles.
Probably, these places were not just places of worship and performance of rituals, but the primary scientific objects, which were used to observe natural cycles, in particular the sun.
- The sun is constantly shifting along the horizon, and thus, in ancient times, people observed the seasons. So, the weather is different, and the time of year and day is constantly tied to the sun.
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Zaporizhzhya Stonehenge or sanctuary-observatory
The first sanctuaries on Khortitsa probably appeared in the Copper Age - they were with solar symbols. And in the Bronze Age, the very objects of a half cult and half scientific kind appeared. Here ancient people not only observed some natural phenomena, but also tried to explain them.
- This was the object investigated on Khortitsa at the height of Bragarnya (31 meters above the level of the Dnieper) - this is a sanctuary-observatory. Judging by the materials of the excavations, it was built and rebuilt for almost a thousand years. At this time, people came, performed rituals, made various stone calculations, built circles of stones and, apparently, observed solar cycles associated primarily with the summer solstice, because this object is focused precisely on the sunrise, and everything that is there, was associated precisely with June 22 - the day of the summer solstice, when we can observe the highest sun and the shortest night. For many Indo-European peoples, this date is sacred, historians say.
It is noted that the ancient observatory is more than 4 thousand years old. Before the excavations, this place looked like a kind of hill in the form of a mound, under which a probe revealed accumulations of stones of considerable size. To investigate the site, two excavations were carried out with a total area of about 300 square meters. As a result, a unique cult structure was discovered, which in shape resembles a huge "dumbbell" and includes seven stone bookmarks, three cromlechs and 15 large stele-like stones. All structures are constructed from local gray granite slabs, with most of them being large to medium in size.
The sanctuary was hidden under a meter thick layer of sand, made of granite stones in the form of a complex of several circular masonry, steles and paved areas.
Egg-shaped stone sanctuaries
Several Khortitsa sanctuaries are notable for being laid out in the shape of an egg.
- In ancient times, the egg served as a symbol of the birth of all living things. In one of these structures, it was the sanctuary that was arranged, and in the other, the burial; in the center of the "egg" there was a void, symbolizing, apparently, the yolk, in which one of the ministers of this cult was buried. There were quite a few similar objects on our territory, archaeologists say, noting that, as a rule, after excavations, such sanctuaries have the opportunity to be museumified and made available for tourists.
Like the neighboring stone foundations of such a cult complex, the sharp end of the structure is oriented to the east.
Sanctuary of the Scythian era
Another interesting cult object was plundered by vandals even before archaeologists discovered it. This is a sanctuary in the form of a round stone foundation in a pine forest near the Black Rock, dating back to the 5th – 4th centuries. BC. This object is well hidden from prying eyes, since it is located right in the forest, but you can take the north-western part of the fence of the Chaika camp as a reference point. Not far from the place where the fence makes a corner, this stone bookmark is located. The structure has the shape of a ring with a small bulge, the diameter of the ring is about 5 meters, it consists of stones mainly of small and medium (up to half a meter) sizes, stones are mainly chipped, loose, tightly fitted to each other.
Archaeologists note that at this site the western part has traces of a predatory digging, since it was here that three vertically located granite blocks were found, which appeared in this place, apparently after the work of robbers.
Eneolithic cromlechs
Not far from the historical and cultural complex "Zaporizhzhya Sich" archaeologists discovered 12 cromlechs of ring structures made of stones and 6 stone inserts of different sizes.
- This cult complex of the Copper Age is associated with the burial group located here, which was the largest on the island of Khortitsa. In addition, the remains of a sanctuary are located not far from the found complex of cromlechs. Such a close arrangement of religious objects suggests that they belong to a single sacred complex of gigantic proportions, say the staff of the reserve.
This cult complex is also considered one of the most interesting among the sanctuaries of Khortitsa. Firstly, it is distinguished by a very high preservation of almost all structural elements, and also attracts with its antiquity - it is already more than 5 thousand 500 years old. It is noted that this object is the work of representatives of the Kvityan culture (late V - early IV millennium BC). After research, the entire complex was reconstructed at the level of the modern day surface and is now available for inspection by all visitors to the island of Khortitsa.
According to archaeologists, each object must be examined very carefully and carefully in order to preserve it, therefore, such works often require a lot of time and certain funds.
- Now in the Generalka gully we are excavating an interesting object of transitional times - between the Bronze and Copper Age. This is a very interesting object, which has been excavated for the last 12 years, if not more. It should be noted that there were practically no stone structures, and ditches were dug on the horizon, that is, pits that limited some area, and between them there was a large amount of ritual utensils, animal bones, and so on. Perhaps these were some sites for ritual sacrifices that were associated with the solar and lunar cycles, - they say in the reserve.
According to historians, as a rule, the sanctuaries are not related to the funeral cult - there are burial mounds for this. And the sanctuaries were created specifically for rituals. To some extent, the sanctuaries are the forerunners of the modern open-air church.