Russian archaeologists have unearthed many amazing finds that help to better know the history of the country and mankind. We recall the 7 biggest sensations of Russian archeology.
Princess Ukok
An amazing find of archaeologists in the Altai Mountains, on the Ukok plateau, which thundered not only throughout Russia, but became famous all over the world. In 1993, Novosibirsk archaeologists found a woman's burial there, dating from the 5th-3rd centuries BC. Thanks to the climate of this place, as well as the depth of the burial, the grave was frozen in ice, which means it was saved from decomposition.
For several days, trying not to harm the burial, archaeologists melted the ice. In the burial chamber, six horses were found under saddles and with harness, a log of larch with bronze nails. The mummy of a young girl (at the time of her death she was about 25 years old) is well preserved. She wore a wig and a silk shirt, woolen skirt, felt socks, and a fur coat. Scientists argue whether this was a noble person or she belonged to the middle stratum of Pazyryk society.
The indigenous Altaians believe that the floods and earthquakes on their land are connected with the fact that the "princess" was taken to the museum, and they demand to return her to the Ukok plateau. In the meantime, an amazing exhibit can be seen in the museum of Gorno-Altaysk, where an extension and a sarcophagus were specially created for it with the maintenance of temperature and humidity conditions.
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Birch bark letters
This discovery took a long time: from the chronicles it was known that in Russia they wrote on birch bark, archaeologists sometimes found the tools with which they wrote, but they assumed that these were hairpins or nails. They were looking for birch bark letters near Novgorod, but the Great Patriotic War began, and the search stopped. Only in 1951, at the Nerevsky excavation site, they finally discovered "Birch bark letter No. 1". To our time, more than a thousand birch bark letters and even one birch bark icon have been found. Residents of Novgorod find them when laying communications, and a fragment of "Certificate No. 612" a native of Novgorod Chelnokov found in his own flower pot when transplanting flowers!
Now we know letters from various places in Russia, as well as Belarus and Ukraine. These are official documents, lists, study exercises, drawings, personal notes, containing a wide variety of vocabulary - from love to obscene.
Scythian gold
On the vast territory between the Danube and the Don there are many mounds. They remained here from the Scythian tribe, and each kurgan is "gold-bearing", because only the Scythians put so much gold in the burials of both nobility and ordinary people. Gold for the Scythians was a symbol of life after death, and therefore it was placed in all mounds and in various forms. Raids on Scythian burial mounds began in the Middle Ages, but even now archaeologists find treasures in them. In one of the mounds they found the burial of a warrior woman with weapons and gold beads, in another - a bronze panel depicting the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons, in the third - a diadem of sheet gold … Hundreds of kilograms of Scythian gold jewelry are filled with the collections of the Hermitage and other famous museums.
Unknown type of person
On March 24, 2010, the journal "Nature" published a sensational article about the "Denisov man", whose remains were found in Denisova cave, located in the valley of the Anuy river in Altai. In the cave were found the bone of the last phalanx of a child's finger, three huge molars that belonged to a young man, and a phalanx of a toe. The researchers carried out a DNA analysis and found that the remains of the bone date back to a period of 40 thousand years ago. Moreover, the "Denisovan man" turned out to be an extinct type of man, whose genome is significantly different from ours. The evolutionary divergence of such a man and a Neanderthal occurred about 640 thousand years ago. Later, these people became extinct or partially mixed with Homo sapiens. In the cave itself, archaeologists uncovered 22 layers corresponding to different cultural eras. Now any tourist can get into this cave.
White Sea labyrinths
There are labyrinths in all parts of the world among peoples at different stages of development. In Russia, the most famous labyrinths are located near the White Sea: there are about forty of them, of which more than thirty are on the Solovetsky Islands of the Arkhangelsk Region. All northern labyrinths are made of medium-sized stones, have an oval shape in the plan, and inside there are intricate passages leading to the center. Until now, no one knows the exact purpose of the labyrinths, especially since there are more than one type of them. But most often archaeologists associate them with the cult of the dead and burial rites. This theory is supported by the fact that on the Big Zayatsky Island, under the stone heaps of the labyrinth, archaeologists discovered burnt human bones and stone tools. There is an assumption that the ancient people who lived by the sea believed that the soul of a deceased person was transported across the water to another island,and she must not go back. The labyrinth served this purpose: the soul "wandered" in it and returned back to the kingdom of the dead. Perhaps the labyrinths were used in initiation rites as well. Unfortunately, the study of the labyrinths is difficult, because while excavating the labyrinth, the archaeologist destroys the monument itself.
Mammoth blood
The most recent archaeological find - it was made just two months ago, at the end of May 2013. Its uniqueness lies not in the fact that archaeologists have found the remains of a mammoth - such finds no longer surprise anyone in the archaeological world. But in the ice of the Lyakhovsky Islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago, scientists discovered the carcass of a female mammoth, the soft tissues of which were preserved almost perfectly. It is striking that blood was preserved in the carcass. Scientists from different countries have high hopes for this find. They hope to find a living cell (that is, a cell with "viable" DNA) of this animal and raise the question of cloning it.
Five underwater cities
In the area of the Kyrgyz Lake Issyk-Kul, the sites of primitive people, petroglyphs, burial grounds of different times, cenotaphs, stone sculptures of the Turkic era, medieval settlements, treasures have already been opened … But archaeologists did not stop there and … went under the water! An international Russian-Kyrgyz underwater archaeological expedition to Lake Issyk-Kul has produced amazing results. At the bottom of the lake, at least 5 ancient cities were discovered, the age of which is about 3 thousand years. These cities stood on one of the branches of the Great Silk Road. It is assumed that these places were not only a trade, but also a "resort" center of the ancient world. According to one of the legends, an ancient Armenian monastery was located here, in which the relics of the Apostle Matthew were buried. At least in the famous "Catalan Atlas" Lake Issyk-Kul, and a monastery, and a shrine are indicated.