The first archaeological finds made in Siberia by European scientists date back to the 18th century, when travelers D. Messerschmidt and F. Tabbert-Strallenberg discovered mysterious ancient monuments on the Yenisei: tall stone steles with strange images and inscriptions in an incomprehensible language and high burial mounds surrounded by vertical stone plates. Having learned about these discoveries, the French scientist, the Abbot of Balya, who spent a lot of effort on the search for the mysterious Atlantis, put forward a hypothesis that the whole country of mounds and stone steles was left behind by the Siberian tribes not sunk into oblivion, but by the wise Atlanteans praised by Plato. These and a number of other discoveries associated with the boundless Siberia were the driving force that haunted archaeologists for two centuries.
Bad start
Despite repeated attempts by scientists to carry out systematic excavations of ancient Siberian settlements, the first major expedition was sent beyond the Urals only in the mid-twenties of the last century. At that time, archaeologists investigated the later famous Paleolithic settlement Buret in the interfluve of the Angara and Lena rivers. Unusual in this settlement was that almost all dwellings, whose age exceeded 25-30 thousand years, were built from mammoth bones, rhino skulls and reindeer horns!
Residents of the surrounding Buryat villages have long considered the place where the ancient settlement was located sacred, and therefore the appearance of scientists outraged everyone. Several times the locals tried to set fire to the camp of archeologists, secretly breaking tools and mechanisms. The leadership of the expedition was even forced to organize the protection of the excavation site by the local police.
Black label
Already the first days of excavation gave scientists rich and very valuable material. Among other artifacts, they found a long, flat, well-polished black stone, the purpose of which could only be guessed at. And soon unpleasant events began to occur in the camp. So, one of the archaeologists accidentally injured his arm with a bone fragment, and soon he developed gangrene. Another scientist was seriously poisoned after he decided to have a bite to eat at the excavation site with the supplied biscuits. In the wagon train, which, after the inventory, transported the found artifacts to Irkutsk, half of the horses died. And two months after the start of excavations, cholera broke out on the expedition. The arriving doctors could not find the reason that caused such a serious disease - archaeologists, following the instructions, used only boiled water, did not come into contact with the local population,and there were no cases of cholera in the surrounding villages. As a result, the excavations were stopped, and at the end of the summer the expedition returned to Moscow.
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Later, one of the scientists who participated in those excavations learned that the polished stone found was a kind of "black mark" - a magical object that served as a talisman. Archaeologists will find similar items more than once in excavation sites. …
Shaman Cape Burkhan
The excavations carried out in the forties of the XX century on the Baikal island of Olkhon on the sacred cape Burkhan (or Shaman-rock) of the Neolithic burial brought a lot of trouble to the researchers.
Since the middle of the 18th century, Cape Burkhan has been known to Russian settlers as a place where shamans from Tuva, Buryatia, and Khakassia gathered to worship the spirits. The burials of the most respected representatives of the pagan cult were carried out here since ancient times. The excavations carried out have confirmed this - in none of the cultural layers, even at the greatest depths, household items or other artifacts were found that would indicate the existence of ancient settlements or even sites on the island. At the same time, archaeologists stumbled upon a large number of cult objects made of bone, stone, bronze and even precious metals.
Don't disturb the spirits
According to the recollections of one of the participants in the expedition of the Tomsk scientist Igor Bogdanovich Seliverstov, as soon as their group landed on the coast of Olkhon on a warm July day, the weather began to deteriorate rapidly. Low clouds covered the sky, a hurricane wind rose. The waves of the lake rolled one after another onto the cape, striving to wash away boxes and bags with equipment, tents and food. It seemed to the members of the expedition that nature itself was angry with the intruders. However, the real tests were still ahead.
Already on the very first day, new batteries failed. A pair of rowboats, moored to the shore, started to leak. And at night, all members of the expedition heard how at night someone walked between the tents, making sounds similar to groans. Since that time, not a day has passed without anyone being injured during the excavation. Soon, women archaeologists began to claim that someone was strangling them in their sleep. They felt the touch of someone's cold invisible hands.
Two weeks after the start of the excavation, one of the scientists almost died due to an annoying oversight. The young man found a flint-flint with some kind of signs applied to it and tried to strike fire with it. As a result, the clothes on him burst into flames, and only the decisive actions of his colleagues, who began to douse him with water from buckets, saved the scientist's life.
One day an old Tuvan man sailed to the island and demanded a meeting with the leader of the group, during which he warned that if the archaeologists do not * 'leave alone the spirits of great ancestors, they will be severely punished by the supreme deities …
The archaeological group worked on Olkhon for another week and departed from the mysterious island to Irkutsk, and then to Novosibirsk, taking with them those few but valuable items that scientists managed to find.
Enchanted ax
Unfortunately, finds often found in the ground bring with them many unpleasant surprises. So, in the fall of 1977, on the right bank of the Amur, near the village of Bogorodskoye in the Khabarovsk Territory, archaeologists discovered an ancient human site. During the excavations, scientists have extracted a number of unique household and cultural items from the millennial deposits of the soil, and among them - a perfectly preserved ax, whose age, according to the assumption, could be about 100 thousand years. At that time, local residents worked together with archaeologists in auxiliary works. Through an oversight of the leader of the expedition, the ax fell into the hands of the five-year-old son of one of the workers. As a result, the boy almost lost his leg. According to him, the ax suddenly flew into the air and fell on his leg just above the thigh.
It is beyond the reach of the human mind
There are cases when museums suffered from valuable archaeological exhibits, which seemed to bear the stamp of a curse. So, in 1879 a big fire broke out in Irkutsk. The investigation found that the fire happened in a local museum, after which the fire began to cover all new city quarters. Soon after, rumors spread around the city that the museum had been set on fire … items that were in its storerooms and found seven years earlier! Then in 1872, during the construction of the Irkutsk military hospital, bones of fossil animals of the Ice Age, stone and bone products and human remains of the Paleolithic era were found in the ground. These findings were sent to the museum. However, in the fire of the fire of 1879, priceless artifacts died …
Sometimes a mysterious rock literally haunts scientists who have made significant archaeological discoveries. Someone writes off these facts as mere chance, someone tries to explain them from the point of view of materialistic science. However, living witnesses of such events agree that in each specific case there is an influence of some higher forces that is inaccessible to the human mind.
Sergey K0ZHUSHK0. Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" No. 25 2008