A lot has been written about the discoveries of the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition: these are the scientific works of its employees, books based on its materials, and hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles about the excavations and those who made them.
Considering the history of the archaeological study of Novgorod, it is impossible not to pay tribute to those who obtained the first information on the archeology of this city. These include , first of all, E. A. Bolkhovitinov [1], whose work brought us ideas about the archaeological topography of Novgorod, the thickness of cultural strata, and the preservation of wood in the local soil. Interest in Novgorod history was great, and the question of archaeological research in this city arose repeatedly. In the 19th century, excavations were even carried out here, the results of which, unfortunately, have not come down to us, just as the materials of the excavations carried out by N. Roerich in the Novgorod Kremlin in 1910 have not reached us2.
Thus, the excavations in Novgorod begun under the leadership of A. V. Artsikhovsky in 1929.3 cannot be considered a continuation of the pre-revolutionary archaeological work of V. S. Peredolsky or N. Roerich. In practice, there was no such precedent for all ancient Russian cities, since the single excavations of church ruins carried out in them did not pursue broad historical goals. N. I. Repnikov in Staraya Ladoga excavated a small settlement, which did not solve many theoretical and practical problems faced by researchers of Novgorod. At the end of the 1920s, no one was able to fully identify the history of at least one small ancient Russian settlement, they were dug reluctantly, rarely and clumsily. Even such a prominent archaeologist as A. A. Spitsyn wrote that "a substantial settlement is a rarity" (by the content of the settlement, he meant primarily things, not structures). But in the Novgorod soil there were a lot of preserved wooden structures. This was already well known, but they had almost no idea of the nature of these structures and the possibility of fixing them.
When excavating ancient settlements, attention was already paid to identifying perekopov-places where layers, and therefore things of different times, are mixed up. If the dig goes unnoticed, it may lead to erroneous conclusions. Mixed layers were usually identified by observing vertical sections of the cultural layer, which they tried to do as often as possible. But if the tree is still intact, leave an hour-
1 E. A. Bolkhovitinov. Historical Conversations about the antiquities of Veliky Novgorod, Moscow, 1808; V. S. Peredolsky. Novgorod antiquities. Novgorod, 1898.
2 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Archaeological study of Novgorod. "Proceedings of the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition", Vol. 1. Materials and research on the archeology of the USSR( hereinafter-MIA), No. 55, 1956.
3 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Excavations in 1929 in the Novgorod district. "Materials and research of the Novgorod Museum". Issue 1. Moscow, 1939.
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heavy earthen lintels-meant to neglect the observation of the remains of structures. It was necessary to find the optimal ratio of the frequency of profiles and plans of structures in the conditions of excavations in the city. Features of the construction of houses and wooden pavements were not known, and this, in particular, caused N. I. Repnikov's mistake when he declared the pavement discovered during the excavations of N. Roerich to be the floor of a dwelling. It was necessary to find ways that would allow us to identify the features of the structures. There was no classification of urban ceramics, if only because nothing was known about it at all. The approximate types of items that might have been found during the excavation were also unknown. The objects known from the excavations of mounds are specific and no younger than the XII-XIII centuries; therefore, information about them was of little help, since during the excavations of cities objects of all centuries of the II millennium AD should have been found, and the chronology of all finds had to be created almost anew. There were many other questions that had to be solved, if not solved, then found ways to solve them. That is why it was so difficult to dare to take scientific responsibility for the invasion of the cultural layer of the ancient Russian city, and even so important for the national history.
Therefore, the first excavations were carried out not in Novgorod itself, but on the Ancient Settlement, which later became known as Rurikovo. Chronicles say that Novgorod princes lived there. There is no doubt that the Ancient Settlement also had a princely archive. The documents stored in it were long lost, but they left lead seals, which are an important historical source. N. P. Likhachev collected and preserved hundreds of seals. But collecting seals also had a negative side, because in search of lead circles, for which it was possible to get good money, the population dug holes in the cultural layer of the Settlement. Therefore, the excavations here did not give the desired results, although they to some extent prepared researchers for the study of urban layers. Excavations of burial mounds near Novgorod made in the same year, 1929, made it possible to once again get acquainted with typical things for them. At the same time, archaeological work was carried out on the Kursk hillfort in Novgorod land, which was important for studying the methods of excavation in those places where the tree was preserved (on the Kursk hillfort, its preservation was relatively good). This was the end of the preparatory period.
In 1932, the first stage of excavations began in Novgorod. The State Academy of the History of Material Culture commissioned A.V. Artsikhovsky to conduct excavations on Slavensky Hill, with which a number of historians associated the site of the oldest core of Novgorod. The work lasted for four seasons (1932, 1934, 1936, and 1937) .4 The oldest layers that A.V. Artsikhovsky expected to find were not found on Slavna. The results of these excavations were as surprising as they were small in scale. The choice of the place of work was determined by urban development. I had to dig where there were no buildings, no streets, no gardens, no vegetable gardens. This forced choice nevertheless turned out to be successful. The excavation site and the plots subsequently cut to it (with a total area of 508 square meters. m with a maximum thickness of the cultural layer of 3 m) included four craft workshops and a fortress wall.
A twelfth-century hut belonging to a shoemaker was opened in Slavna. A lot of belts, clippings, soles, shoe remnants and scraps of leather were found around her. The shoemaker himself processed the skins: a box of split blocks was found near his hut, in which there was a thick layer of wool and lime (the hair from the skins was removed with lime). From the ca-
4 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Excavations at Slavna in Novgorod. MIA, N 11. 1949.
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There were other artisans nearby. A partially preserved small blacksmith shop was found, where tools were repaired. The churn pulp shows a workshop where hemp and nut oil was crushed. In another workshop, clay toy birds were made. The opening of these workshops, located on a limited area, made it possible for the first time to speak of Novgorod as a craft city .5 To appreciate the fundamental novelty of this statement, it is necessary to recall that up to that time the theory of commercial cities prevailed. Bourgeois science assigned Novgorod the role of a trading post, a shopping center. In her mind, Novgorod was a city where merchants lived and ruled. A. V. Artsikhovsky's statement predetermined M. N. Tikhomirov's general conclusion about the craft character of ancient Russian cities .6
The fortress wall, discovered in 1932 and further explored during the remaining three field seasons7, was built, as A.V. Artsikhovsky was able to prove, by Posadnik Fyodor Danilovich in 1335. The discovery of the wall is important, first, from the point of view of stratigraphic dating possibilities. The layer of building remains of this wall divides the cultural strata into two horizons. Everything below it is older than the middle of the fourteenth century, and everything above it is younger. This corresponds to the already known dates of items found. Now you can date other items as well. So, glass bracelets-a favorite decoration of Old Russian townwomen - were found only below the layer of 1335. Consequently, they were worn only until the middle of the XIV century. Thus, this stratigraphic observation made it easier to date structures and objects. Secondly, the discovery of the wall clearly showed the south-eastern border of Novgorod in the middle of the XIV century.
During the excavations at Slavna, many things were found; for the urban excavations of the 30s, this was an exceptional abundance. There were tools of artisans, and their products, and weapons, and objects of applied art, and lead seals, and coins, and much more. For the first time, the appearance of the medieval city began to become clear. A. V. Artsikhovsky rightly writes that the excavations at Slavna laid the foundations of the archeology of Novgorod. They showed the failure of the principle of preferential attention to the layers of any one period, since it is impossible to foresee what exactly will be found. Layers of all ages studied by archaeology deserve equal attention.
Simultaneously with the expedition led by A.V. Artsikhovsky, other archaeologists also occasionally excavated in Novgorod: S. M. Smirnov, B. K. Manteuffel, A. A. Strokov, M. K. Karger, and G. P. Grozdilov .8 The results of their work were a great contribution to the archeology of Novgorod, but the main expedition that studied the history of the city was the expedition of A. V. Artsikhovsky. At that time, it was tiny, and its head alone processed the received materials (this was still possible). At that time, no one knew that the student P. I. Zasurtsev, who first participated in the expedition in 1937, would become a permanent member of its team and the author of many works on the archeology of Novgorod.
Excavations at Slavna formed the first stage of the archaeological study of Novgorod. The second stage began in 1938 with excavations at Yaro-
5 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Novgorod crafts. "Novgorod historical Collection". Issue 6. 1939; his own. Excavations on Slavna in Novgorod, p. 151.
6 M. N. Tikhomirov. Ancient Russian cities. "Scientific Notes" of Moscow University. Issue 99, 1946.
7 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Excavations on Slavna in Novgorod, pp. 132-136; his. Archaeological study of Novgorod, pp. 10-11
8 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Archaeological study of Novgorod, pp. 10-11.
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slavov Dvorishche, continued in 1939. In two years, 456 square meters were excavated with the thickness of the cultural layer up to 3.5 m, and in one case even up to 4.7 m.
Yaroslavovo Dvorishche - the place where the court of Yaroslav the Wise was first located, and after the eviction of the princes, Vecheva Square was located on the Ancient Settlement. Naturally, there were a lot of expectations associated with this object. However, the main part of the courtyard was occupied by a small factory, and in the pre-war years it was impossible to dig there. We had to limit ourselves to the periphery of this veche center. Free space was available only at the Church of St. Nicholas in the courtyard, mainly on its southern side. This is where the excavations were laid 9 .
In 1938-1939, one of the most significant objects uncovered by excavations were wooden pavements. Although the preservation of the logs was poor, it was still possible to get a more or less clear picture of these structures. The basis of the pavement was three longitudinal logs-logs, on which the transverse blocks were laid, this is a classic design of Russian wooden pavements. Their width is on average 4 m, which is also typical for Novgorod. Another roadway ran perpendicular to the main roadway, apparently it was an exit from the street to the lane or to the estate. Each pavement consisted of three layers: a new one was laid on the old, worn-out and sunk in mud flooring. For the first time, the term "tier" was used for these layers of pavement, which was used earlier on Slavna, but in a slightly different meaning, and later took the main place in the terminology of the Novgorod expedition. Based on the study of the bridges discovered by excavations, as well as the data obtained during modern construction and economic work in Novgorod, A.V. Artsikhovsky concluded that the city was completely paved in the XI - XV centuries. Such pavements were not found anywhere in Western Europe. True, a military camp of the X - XI centuries in Denmark is now known.10, where they found a wooden pavement, but different in design, so it can not be compared with Novgorod. Later it turned out that many ancient Russian cities had Novgorod-type pavements. But before the excavations in Novgorod, nothing was known about the pavements.
In addition to the pavements, in 1938-1939 a number of wooden decks were traced, which, apparently, were the floors of Novgorod dwellings. But the study of the construction of houses was still ahead. In the same years, archaeologists discovered structures represented by two types of wooden pipes. The first ones were made from logs split lengthwise, hollowed out, and then re-connected. Others were made up of humps or even whole logs and represent a quadrangular gutter in cross-section. Pipes of the second type were identified correctly - as part of a drainage system designed to drain the swampy Novgorod soil. Pipes made of hollowed-out logs were taken for water supply. Opened during excavations, a well-preserved extensive cellar measuring 4, 4X4, 2 m, had 14 crowns with a total height of up to 2.1 m. The floor consisted of smooth-hewn planks. For a long time this cellar remained an example of a well-preserved log house. They found about 9 thousand grains of various cereals and weeds. Among them, the main mass consisted of rye grains; single grains of apple and cucumber trees were preserved. This is how the first archaeological information about Novgorod agriculture was obtained. Somewhere near the excavation site in ancient times, there was probably a forge, as indicated by 63 found kritsch. Many other finds are also interesting: a piece of chain mail weaving, edged with a chain link. -
9 A.V. Artsikhovsky. Excavations of the eastern part of the Courtyard in Novgorod. MIA, N 11. 1949.
10 J. Brondsted. The Vikings. Penguin books. L. 1965, p. 174.
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They were decorated with copper rings, three hanging lead seals and a number of wooden products that made it possible to present for the first time the utensils of a residential building that belonged to an ordinary citizen.
For the first time, the processing of materials from the excavations of 1938-1939 was carried out not only by the head of the expedition. N. I. Falkovsky touched upon the hydrotechnical structures of Novgorod in his article, L. I. Yakunina described leather shoes, and I. I. Nikishin organized the determination of grains, which involved a number of specialists from the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy .11 However, all these people were not employees of the expedition.
Excavations in Novgorod resumed only after the Great Patriotic War. In 1947, the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences began work in the central part of Yaroslav's Courtyard. The factory was no longer there. Veliky Novgorod, incinerated, blown up and torn to pieces by the Nazis, lay in ruins. But residential buildings were already being built, businesses were being restored, and the Millennium Monument of Russia was revived. The excavations of 1947-1948 constitute the third stage of the archaeological survey of Novgorod. The wide scope of work, its mechanization, a lot of new discoveries, and most importantly-the beginning of the creation of a team of scientific staff of the expedition fall on these two years. The cultural layer with a thickness of up to 4 m was uncovered on an area of 836 sq. m. For the first time in the practice of Soviet archaeological expeditions, conveyors were used to throw out the earth that was viewed and ground by hands, which made it possible to use the funds provided for excavations more efficiently. The Novgorod expedition was almost the first to master the level, which accelerated the production and accuracy of measurements. B. A. Kolchin, A. F. Medvedev, G. A. Avdusina, and A.V. Kiryanov became its employees. V. L. Yanin, then a student of Moscow State University, participated in the work for the first time. The head of the expedition, as always, was A.V. Artsikhovsky. Post-war excavations at Yaroslav's Dvorishche surpassed all pre-war work in Novgorod. Before the archaeologists appeared log cabins, decking, pavements, palisades, drainage pipes. Dozens of different objects were found every day, many of which would have been the pride of pre-war excavations. In 1947-1948, the Novgorod Expedition flourished.
Numerous log cabins of the 12th - 14th centuries were discovered in the center of Yaroslav's Courtyard. It was the first time there were so many of them. There was an opportunity to study the Novgorod buildings, the nature of which until then remained virtually unknown. The size of these log cabins was modest, there were no traces of stoves in them, which for a long time seemed inexplicable. Numerous were the wooden pipes found not only in the center of Vechevy Novgorod, but also on Chudintseva Street, where in 1947 the expedition also conducted work. The terrain there is elevated, so the existence of a gravity water supply here was doubtful. A wooden well with a floor and lid was opened on Yaroslav's Courtyard. It included three wooden pipes, and only one came out (this was installed by the slope of the pipes). For a water supply system, such a structure is at least mysterious. And then the first doubt was expressed about the existence of a water supply system. In the center of the Courtyard, they found three alternating decks. The head of the excavation suggested that part of Veche Square was discovered.
11 N. I. Falkovsky. From the history of water supply and sewerage in Russia. "Water supply and sanitary equipment", 1939, N 6, pp. 90-91; L. I. Yakunina. Novgorod shoes of the XII-XIV centuries. " Brief reports of the Institute of the History of Material Culture "(KSIIMK). Issue XVII. 1947; A.V. Artsikhovsky. Excavations of the eastern part of the Courtyard in Novgorod, p. 171.
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and here doubts arose: the modest size of this square (and it had nowhere else to be located) caused confusion and did not correspond to previous ideas about the violent Novgorod veche.
A large number of items were found. Especially interesting are wood and bone products that were previously almost unknown. There were also very large objects: two garden-type gates, a barrel, and the underwater bow of a rook. From the writings of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, single-tree boats have long been known, hewn and hollowed out of a single trunk. Frames were attached to such a single-tree structure, and plank sides were sewn on them. There were also frames, boat rivets, and a ladle for low water. The discovered sledge runner of the XIII - XIV centuries coincided in shape with the sledge runners depicted in the manuscript of the legend of Boris and Gleb. There were also a lot of small objects, including a spindle with traces of stone weights that were put on them, which made their rotation easier. The spinning rods themselves numbered in the dozens. Even earlier, archaeologists found that such spinning rods made of pink stone-slate-were made in pre-Mongol Russia only near the town of Ovruch in Volhynia.
Of the wooden items, it is necessary to mention combs, often ornamented, spoons, numerous whorls - gnarled sticks for churning butter, chiseled bowls and much more. For the first time, some wooden objects were marked with inscriptions: on the bottom of one of the barrels was written "Yurishchina", on the shoe block - "Mnezi". These are names. In 1948 they found a wooden ruler with the inscription: "Saint Ievanosk...". This is the "Evansky elbow" mentioned in the XII century in the charter of Vsevolod Mstislavich. The original elbow (so to speak, the standard measure of length) was kept in the church of Ivan on Opoki, and the find of 1948 is a copy of the specified sample, unfortunately broken off. Other items with inscriptions were also found, suggesting that the population of medieval Novgorod was widely literate.
A lot of metal objects were also found. As you know, phosphorous salts in the ground of many Russian cities protect metal from destruction. Thanks to this, iron does not rust much, being covered only with a characteristic blue coating; bronze objects often do not oxidize at all, so it is worth a lot of work to convince the workers involved in the excavation that the product was found from copper, and not from gold. Among the iron things were tools, weapons, household items. Copper items are represented by ornaments, folding scales, a copper lid of a vessel with a secret inscription, which was later deciphered by V. L. Yanin. There were also lead hanging seals. The collections of the Novgorod expedition have grown enormously. The excavations of 1947-1948 expanded our knowledge of the everyday life of ordinary Novgorodians, and they determined the further success of research in Novgorod12 .
A lot of books and articles are devoted to the fourth stage of excavations in Novgorod, thanks to which he became widely known. Work was continued in 1951 on the left bank of the Volkhov River at the Nerevsky end, mentioned many times in the chronicle. It was known that the cultural layer here is more powerful than in the sites of previous excavations, that wood and some other organic substances are well preserved here. This was confirmed by small excavations made by the Novgorod Museum in 1932, 1941 and 1948 at the Nerevsky end, as well as observations during the construction of a water pipeline. A large vacant lot bounded by Dmitrievskaya, Sadovaya, Tikhvinskaya Streets and Dekabristov Street was convenient for excavations. At that time, no one thought that a huge area for archaeologists would be uncovered there.-
12 A. V. Artsikhovsky. The Novgorod expedition. KSIIMK. Issue XXVII. 1949; his. Excavations in Novgorod. KSIIMK. Issue XXXIII. 1950.
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not more than per hectare. This task faced the expedition suddenly. Its implementation required a large number of workers and scientific personnel, the ability to effectively use mechanisms and devices, the creation of field laboratories and the solution of a number of other practical tasks. It was here that the experience of post-war excavations at Yaroslav Dvorishche came in handy: there was already an established team of researchers who fully provided the scientific part of the expedition work; there was experience working with mechanisms that removed earth from the excavation; there was already a restoration laboratory at Yaroslav Dvorishche. Thus, it is clear that without the excavations of 1947-1948, there could have been no success either in 1951 or in subsequent times.
A dig in 1951 opened the wooden pavement of the street. Comparing its direction with the direction of the streets on the old plans of Novgorod and conducting a geodetic survey (it was carried out by M. N. Kislov), it was possible to establish that the ancient Kholopya Street was opened. The place where Serfdom intersected with the Great Street was also calculated. This intersection was opened in 1952. Both streets are well-known from the annals, and many dramatic events in the history of Novgorod are connected with them. Previously, there were up to 15 layers of pavement at the Nerevsky end. In 1951, there were almost twice as many of them-28. They already had a known device. The dirt from the pavements had been scraped off with special scrapers and lay on the sides of the streets, mixed with a lot of hazelnut shells - a favorite delicacy of the townspeople. From the "Charter on bridges", dating back to the XIII century, it is known that in Novgorod there was a special bridge duty. Paving the streets was mandatory. Pavements in Novgorod are a common phenomenon not only for the XIII century, but also for the X century, to which the oldest pavement dates back.
The expedition was faced with the question of the chronological division of strata, the thickness of which reached 7.5 m. The concept of "tier", developed in the years of pre-war excavations, was taken as a basis. A tier is a complex of simultaneously existing structures and strata formed at the same time. The support of each tier originally served as a pavement, and therefore there were 28 tiers. Each of them in different places had a different thickness, and all the tiers differed in thickness from each other. Their chronology was established by the found objects, the dates of which are known. These are lead seals with inscriptions, glass and stone beads, glass bracelets, coin hoards, etc. Thus, the entire thickness of the Novgorod strata was divided into short dated segments, which managed to achieve an unprecedented dating accuracy of up to 25 years. Over time, it was possible to determine or clarify the dates of many products that previously dated back a total of two or three centuries. The Novgorod chronological school was also suitable for the antiquities of other cities: Smolensk, Moscow, Kiev, etc. 13 .
In the course of the Novgorod excavations, the method of dendrochronology proposed by American archaeologists was used, modified and improved. They studied the change in the thickness of the annual rings of redwoods and were able to accurately answer the question in which year this redwood tree was cut down. This accuracy was provided by the longevity of redwoods, which sometimes live up to 4 thousand years. It was easy to compare the newly felled tree with the one that was cut down a thousand years ago and found during excavations. But in Russia there are no such trees and never existed. I had to build complex graphs for the logs of Novgorod pavements, log cabins, palisades, link their chronology with the dates of logs lying in the foundations of churches, the time of construction
13 B. A. Kolchin. Topography, stratigraphy, and chronology of the Nerevsky excavation. MIA, N 55. 1956.
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which are known, and thus get an accurate chronological scale. The accuracy of dating increased, and the error in determining the age of the structure was now reduced to 2-3 years 14 . The developed method was successfully applied by N. B. Chernykh to the dating of bridges and buildings in Smolensk and other cities .15
Open log cabins were studied to the smallest detail by PI Zasurtsev. As a result, they proposed a classification of Novgorod buildings and their reconstruction 16 . The study of the foundation allowed us to determine the number of storeys of the house. However, the upper parts of the houses were hardly preserved; at best they were represented by one or two logs lying next to the log house, but it was impossible to determine whether they belonged to this log house or to the neighboring one. We had to resort to studying miniatures of ancient Russian chronicles, ethnographic analogies and other materials. No less difficulties were encountered in determining the purpose of buildings: whether it was a residential building, a stable, a workshop or a barn. Stoves, the remains of which were finally found, helped to identify residential buildings. These stoves were made of stones and clay, had no chimneys and were heated in a black way. In cases where they were not found, it often turned out that the house had a basement - a low lower floor, and the stove was located on the second floor. Household equipment was usually stored in the basement. The occupation of the owners of the house was determined by the inventory, if it was found. Often the artisan's home was also his workshop. There was a layer of manure in the barn, and sometimes there were remnants of grain in the barn.
The territory of the estate was fenced with a palisade, and this helped to study not only individual houses, but also the estates as a whole. Estates belonged to people of various social status, but more often their owners were rich people, as it turned out later - feudal lords. Many dependent people, including artisans, sometimes lived on the territory of such estates. Stone houses were very rare, only two of them were discovered so far (one in 1953-1954, the second in 1963). Powerful foundations indicate that they were multi-storey buildings. The area of one of them is 60 sq. m. m - much larger than the house of an ordinary Novgorodian. As it turned out, the estate on which it stood belonged to a whole dynasty of Novgorod posadniks of the XV century. The house itself was built by Yuri Onziforovich. Novgorodians sought to decorate their homes. This is proved by parts of two carved wooden columns that once supported the roof of the porch 17 . One of the columns is decorated with a convex weave and has two medallions, one of which depicts a centaur, the other-a griffin. Applied art is represented by thousands of works. These are mainly carvings and sculptures made of wood and bone. They have now become the object of special art criticism analysis. The patterns of the columns found are close to the bas-reliefs of the white-stone Vladimir cathedrals and precede them. There are also decorations for other parts of the house: shaped window frames, carved roof gables, cornice boards. The houses along the streets were standing freely, giving access to the sun and air.
The purpose of wooden pipes was finally determined at the Nerevsky excavation site. They turned out to be drainage holes. The soil in Novgorod was sy-
14 B. A. Kolchin. Dendrochronology of buildings in the Nerevskoye excavation site. MIA, N 123. 1963.
15 N. B. Chernykh. Absolute dates of wooden structures of ancient Smolensk. "Materials for the study of the Smolensk region "(MISO). Issue VI. Moscow, 1967.
16 B. A. Kolchin. Dendrochronology of buildings of the Nerevsky excavation site. MIA, N 123. 1963: his own. Novgorod, discovered by archaeologists, Moscow, 1967.
17 A. V. Artsikhovsky. Column from the Novgorod excavations. MIA, N 169. 1969.
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paradise, so the houses were put on podklety. Humidity was also dealt with in another way: a barrel without a bottom was dug into the lower floor of many houses, a wooden pipe branched off from it; pipes from three or four neighboring houses led to a common drainage well, from which one of the same pipes went to the next drainage well or directly to the river. Thus, the water collected under house 18 was diverted . Apparently, because of the dampness of the soil in Novgorod, there were no dugouts warmer than log houses. But under the city, in the dry area of Peryn, there are 19 such dugouts . Log houses of the Novgorod type are found on the raw Kiev Hem, although in Kiev the usual type of dwelling was a dugout. Consequently, the construction of dugouts is not related to the northern or southern type of housing, as some archaeologists believe, but to the nature of the soil.
At the beginning of the excavations at the Nerevsky end, the expedition was funded by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and since 1952-by Moscow University, which gradually, but relatively soon, took over the leading role in the research of Novgorod. The area of the 1951 excavation was 324 square meters, which is still a lot for urban excavations. In 1952, new excavations were laid with a total area of 1,520 square meters. m. This scope of work is primarily due to the discovery of a new type of historical sources - birch bark letters, opened on July 26, 1951 at an excavation led by G. A. Avdusina. She was the first archaeologist to pick up these historical documents. That year they found ten letters of commendation. Letters were scratched into the specially treated birch bark. Much has been written about birch bark certificates. But it should be emphasized that the Novgorod discovery testifies to the high thoroughness of work and scientific observation in this archaeological expedition: there are many thousands of birch bark scrolls, and there are only a few letters among them, and they should not be missed.
Charters contain household and economic details, business assignments, report political news, tell about conflicts, are IOUS, spiritual wills, feudal obligations, etc. Their date is the XI - XV centuries, that is, they almost coincide in time with the oldest Russian inscription 20 and only for a hundred years do not reach printing. However, they probably began writing on birch bark in the tenth century, since the oldest scribbles were found in the Novgorod layers of this century; perhaps letters on birch bark survived to printed books, but we do not know them, since birch bark is not preserved in the Novgorod layers of the sixteenth century. The importance of birch bark certificates is that they also cover those aspects of the life of Novgorodians that written documents are silent about. From birch bark letters, we get a wealth of information about the life and everyday life of ordinary people, find out what and how these people thought, delve into the features of the Old Russian spoken language, get information about seemingly forever lost phenomena (for example, about the system of teaching children to read and write).
The first scientific publication and study of letters belongs to A.V. Artsikhovsky, who solved a number of issues in collaboration with 21 other authors, including M. N. Kislov, who is in the process of
18 A. F. Medvedev. Drainage structures and their significance in the improvement of Novgorod the Great. MIA, N 55. 1956.
19 V. V. Sedov. Ancient Russian pagan sanctuary in Peryn. KSIIMK. Issue L. 1953.
20 D. A. Avdusin. Gnezdovskaya korchaga. MIA, N 176. 1970.
21 A.V. Artsikhovsky, M. N. Tikhomirov. Novgorod letters on birch bark (From excavations in 1951). Moscow, 1953; A.V. Artsikhovsky. Novgorod letters on birch bark (From excavations in 1952). Moscow, 1954; A.V. Artsikhovsky, V. I. Borkovsky. Novgorod letters on birch bark (From excavations in 1953-1954), Moscow, 1958; A.V. Artsikhovsky, V. I. Borkovsky Novgorod Letters on Birch bark (From excavations in 1955), Moscow, 1958; A.V. Artsikhovsky, V. I. Borkovsky. Novgorod letters on birch bark (From excavations in 1956-1957). Moscow, 1963; A.V. Artsikhovsky. Novgorod letters on birch bark (From excavations in 1958-1961). Moscow, 1963.
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after studying these letters, he became a prominent paleographer. He fulfilled all the prescriptions of letters, and often their scientific interpretation was supplemented by him. The organizational skills and energy of M. N. Kislov, the permanent partner of the Novgorod expedition, greatly contributed to its success. Speaking of letters, we should recall the words of A.V. Artsikhovsky, that the Novgorod expedition found not some lost archive, but torn and thrown to the ground letters. After all, letters are found in layers of different times and on different estates. These are private letters, and often letters from ordinary people: peasants, artisans, small merchants.
Consequently, and this was a revolution in the ideas of ancient Russia, even ordinary people in Novgorod were literate.
Immediately there were opponents of this hypothesis, who claimed that professional scribes wrote for peasants and artisans. Sometimes, of course, it was. But V. L. Yanin noted that in most cases, in letters originating from one person, the handwriting matches in detail. The second argument is somewhat more extensive. A. F. Medvedev discovered the tools that were used to write letters, in ancient times they were called "pisala". These are bone or metal rods with a sharp end. They are found not only in Novgorod, but also in many ancient Russian cities .22 There are dozens of them in Novgorod, and one can hardly think that all of them were lost in the courtyards of estates by scribes who came to write a letter. They were used by people who lived on these estates and wrote letters without outside help. And, finally, inscriptions are found on numerous household items: the bottoms of barrels, shoe blocks, touchstones, spinning rods, etc. It is unlikely that the shoemaker, in order to write the name of the customer on the block or the name of the fish salted in it, called the scribe, and the competent owners of the shoe block or barrel were representatives of the nobility.
The answer is clear: literacy was widespread in Novgorod, including among the common people.
There are letters addressed to peasants, artisans and other ordinary people. But there are also letters to posadniks. It is proved that this is not a simple coincidence of names and patronymics; in a number of letters, the addressee's position is also indicated, for example, " petition to Mr. Posadnik Novgorodsky Andrey Ivanovich "(letter No. 310). It was noticed that the title "master" was applied to the posadnik and his wife. Apparently, it was an official title. Moreover, when addressing the posadnik, it was necessary not to "bow" to him, but to "beat his forehead". Only one letter to the posadnik began with a "bow", but at the end of the letter the author caught himself and added the obligatory "petition" 23 .
Extensive literature is devoted to Novgorod letters. The analysis of birch bark letters is given in V. L. Yanin's book 24, which is a rare example of a combination of scientific research and popular presentation. The author did not confine himself, as is customary in popular publications, to retelling already known facts and conclusions. It raises important questions of Russian history and solves many of them successfully. V. L. Yanin's book gives the general public access to the secrets of research activities, but it also contains important conclusions addressed to specialists. Based on archaeological material, V. L. Yanin recreates a number of vivid pictures of Novgorod's political history. Novgorod birch bark letters as a historical source studied by L. V. Skerep-
22 A. F. Medvedev. Old Russian wrote X - XV centuries. "Soviet Archeology "(SA), 1960, N 2.
23 D. A. Avdusin. Smolensk birch bark letters from excavations in 1966 and 1967. SA, 1969, N 3.
24 V. L. Yanin. "I sent you birch bark...", Moscow, 1965.
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nin 25 . Back in the 50s, foreign authors also devoted their works to them26 . Now the bibliography of the question has become even more extensive.
It hardly makes sense to disclose here the content of a particular letter or group of letters, because such an illustration would be accidental. But it should be said about the most important conclusion that was made in their analysis-this is the conclusion that the ruling class in Novgorod were feudal lords, and not merchants at all. The charters constantly mention feudal duties, feudal dependence, large and small feudal land ownership. Novgorod, unlike the southern cities, served as an attractive center for feudal lords. The reason for this is its republican system. To make his way to the supreme power, the Novgorod feudal lord had to live in the city, participate in the political life of the capital, weave intrigues there, and in the estates he left in his place key keepers who mercilessly exploited the peasants. In the princely lands, feudal lords did not like to live near the prince; only in their estates they remained virtually independent. Having measured the territory of boyar estates uncovered during excavations, V. L. Yanin found that about 300 such urban feudal estates fit into the area of ancient Novgorod. This number coincides with the number of "golden belts" repeatedly mentioned in the sources. Apparently, only these "golden belts"were present at the Novgorod veche. Only large landowners had the right to vote.
But Novgorod is primarily a city of artisans. Everything that it is rich in was created by these dependent people. The number of craft workshops opened increases every year. Now they are known for several dozen. The extensive development of handicraft production is evidenced by numerous finds of handicraft products. They clearly state that almost all the needs of the townspeople were met by local production. They brought only those raw materials that were not available in the city, and products made from such raw materials.
The base of the craft was ferrous metallurgy and iron processing. Unfortunately, the metallurgical workshops in Novgorod are not yet open, and the smithy near the wall of Posadnik Fyodor turned out to be small. It is possible that for fire-fighting purposes such workshops were located outside the city rampart. B. A. Kolchin27 studied the technology of iron production and processing using modern metallographic methods . He researched a large number of iron products and tools. Blacksmiths ' tools are known in full, with the possible exception of anvils. They were not thrown away even when they broke, but were reforged into other products. In the XI - XII centuries, the blacksmith was usually a generalist: he produced products of all types. But the specialization of the craft has already begun, which reached a huge development in the XV-XVI centuries. 28 B. A. Kolchin also wrote a work on the woodworking craft of Novgorod. He collected, classified, and dated all the major types of woodwork. His work is an important reference for archaeologists working in Russian cities whose cultural layer preserves wood. The author also considered the issue of wooden mechanisms, as it became known, widely used in ancient Rus'29 .
25 L. V. Cherepnin. Novgorod Birch bark letters as a historical source, Moscow, 1969.
26 A. L. Khoroshkevich. Foreign responses to the opening of Novgorod birch bark certificates. "History of the USSR", 1958, N 5.
27 B. A. Kolchin. Ferrous metallurgy and metalworking in Ancient Russia. MIA, N 32. 1953.
28 B. A. Kolchin. Ironworking craft of Novgorod the Great. MIA, No. 65, 1959; A.V. Artsikhovsky. Novgorod crafts.
29 B. A. Kolchin. Novgorod antiquities. Wooden products, Moscow, 1968.
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In the work of A. F. Medvedev30, melee and ranged weapons, protective weapons, horse and rider equipment items are thoroughly studied. The purpose of many items was first established by the author. The analysis of weapons shows the originality and richness of ancient Russian weapons. The history of Novgorod glassmaking was studied by Yu. L. Shchapova due to the use of the spectral analysis method. The typological method helped to find out the external features of Russian products, spectral analysis of the chemical composition of glass - technological features of its production. It was established that at the end of the XI century there were many glass-making workshops in Rus'31 . The most common decoration of city women in the XII - XIII centuries. were glass bracelets. They are found in the urban layers in huge numbers. In the first years of excavations at the Nerevsky end on an area of 100 square meters. In total, about 5 thousand fragments of bracelets were found. The Mongol-Tatars destroyed the Russian cities, and with them the glass-making workshops. But Novgorod, along with some other undeveloped cities, continued to produce glass. However, the fashion for glass bracelets passed, and at the beginning of the XIV century. they disappeared 32 .
Many shoemaking workshops were discovered in Novgorod. S. A. Izyumova established the shape of shoes, investigated the technology of their production 33 . Townspeople rarely wore bast shoes. In Novgorod, only one bast shoe was found, and even that one cannot be dated, since it was located in Perekop. Jewelry of Novgorod is studied by M. V. Sedova 34 . There are many imported items among them. We found, for example, a lot of noisy charms from the neighboring Peipsi lands, a temporal ring from the distant land of Vyatichi. It is very characteristic that there are very few Scandinavian ornaments. As expected, they were found in layers of the late X-early XI century. Almost all the finds of Scandinavian items on our territory date back to this time, that is, they appeared a hundred years later than the notorious "vocation of the Varangians" 35 . It should be noted that V. L. Yanin sees the meaning of this later legend in creating a precedent for calling princes from other cities to Novgorod.
Information about the trade of Novgorod, based on the data of excavations, is found in various works. Usually they talk about imported goods: non-ferrous metals, valuable wood, cotton fabrics, vessels from under some goods, walnuts, and finally, about the treasures of dirhams. The expedition team is currently working on this important topic 36 .
As a result of excavations in Novgorod, important information about Novgorod agriculture was obtained. In the Nerevsky end, not 9 thousand grains were found, but such an amount of burnt grain that it was taken away by cars. The article by A. V. Kiryanov is devoted to Novgorod agriculture 37 . After studying not only the grains of cereals, but also the seeds of weeds, he came to important conclusions: the grain found was only local, so it can be considered exaggerated ideas about the lack of bread in the Novgorod land; in the X century, the main grain was millet, and only from the XI century - rye; rye was a winter crop, and wheat - spring; cucumbers and cherries were already widespread in the X century.
30 A. F. Medvedev. Weapons of Novgorod the Great. MIA, N 65. 1959.
31 Yu. L. Shchapova. Glass products of ancient Novgorod. MIA, N 117. 1963.
32 M. D. Poluboyarinova. Glass bracelets of Ancient Novgorod. MIA, N 117. 1963.
33 S. A. Izyumova. To the history of leather and shoemaking crafts of Novgorod the Great. MIA, N 65. 1959.
34 M. V. Sedova. Jewelry of ancient Novgorod. MIA, No. 65, 1959.
35 D. A. Avdusin. On the question of the origin of Smolensk and its original topography. "Smolensk". Collection of articles. Smolensk, 1967, p. 77.
36 E. A. Rybina. From the history of southern import to Novgorod. SA, 1971, N 1.
37 A. V. Kiryanov. History of agriculture of the Novgorod land of the X-XV centuries. MIA, N 65. 1959.
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A few words about lead hanging seals. In one of his works, V. L. Yanin noted that among the Russian seals of the XI - XV centuries, the Novgorod material occupies at least 90%. At present, 1542 ancient Russian seals have been processed, studied and published by V. L. Yanin38 . One of the most difficult tasks was their attribution, that is, establishing their affiliation. But this was not an end in itself for V. L. Yanin. Seals have acquired the significance of a historical source, which is clearly evident from his work on the Novgorod posadniks .39 The author showed the institute of Novgorod posadnichestvo in its development - from its birth to its fall, and drew a broad picture of the political history and class struggle in Novgorod. For the first time and immediately widely V. L. Yanin attracted new historical sources, not only seals, but also birch bark letters. He expressed a hypothesis about the origin of Novgorod. The city was formed, in his opinion, from three settlements that later became the Novgorod ends-Slavensky, Nerevsky and Ludin 40 . V. L. Yanin believes that the village was famously inhabited by Novgorod Slovenes, Nerevsky (Narovsky) konets-chud, and the aristocratic center of Ludina kontsa (Prusskaya Street) - probably Krivichi. V. L. Yanin's book seems to follow from the works of the Novgorod expedition, complementing its research of material culture by revealing the political history of Novgorod.
In 1962, the fifth stage of the Novgorod expedition began. Its main content is a wide maneuver, excavations in different parts of the city, studying the history of folding the city territory. This is due to the desire to expand the source base, to verify the conclusions drawn from the materials of the Nerevsky excavation. But of great importance is the active protection of the cultural layer, which is threatened by the intensive construction that has unfolded in Novgorod, as in our other cities. The expedition is conducting excavations at the site of future construction on Pervomaiskaya Street. One of the stone houses mentioned above was discovered here and (the team's dream came true!) Birchbark book. The richest jewelry workshop was found at the construction site of the TV center. On Suvorovskaya Street, where a new building of the medical school is to be built, a huge cultural layer was explored for one season, and as a result, new documents were discovered containing interesting information about the topography of ancient Novgorod. At the site of the hotel's construction, a Gothic courtyard was discovered, that is, the courtyard of foreign merchants mentioned in written sources. Here is another important find - a birch bark letter written in Latin in a Gothic script. The handwriting is fluent, familiar, which means that the scribe was skilled in writing on birch bark. We can hope that birch bark letters will be found in other countries, as predicted back in 1951 by A. V. Artsikhovsky. His assumption about the prevalence of writing on birch bark has long been confirmed: since 1952, Novgorod is no longer the only city where such letters are known. In Smolensk, 10 of them were found, in Pskov-3, in Staraya Russa - 4, in Vitebsk, during random earthworks, - 1 letter 41 .
The current excavations in Novgorod are characterized by one more feature. The cultural layer of each excavation, as before, is divided into tiers, but
38 V. L. Yanin. Assembly seals of ancient Russia. Tt. 1-2. Moscow, 1970.
39 V. L. Yanin. Novgorodskie posadniki [Novgorod Posadniki], Moscow, 1962.
40 V. L. Yanin, M. H. Aleshkovsky. The origin of Novgorod (To the problem statement). "History of the USSR", 1970, N 2.
41 D. A. Avdusin. Smolensk birch bark certificate. SA, 1957, No. 1; it is the same. Smolensk birch bark letters from raskovok 1964. SA, 1966, N 2; it is the same. Smolensk birch bark letters from excavations in 1966 and 1967. SA, 1969, N 3; his. The Smolensk Expedition. "Archaeological discoveries of 1968", Moscow, 1969; N. P. Drochenina, B. A. Rybakov. Birch bark letter from Vitebsk. SA, 1960, No. 1. Excavations in Pskov were conducted by G. P. Gvozdilov and I. K. Labutina; in Staraya Russa-by A. F. Medvedev. The certificates were not published.
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they no longer rest on the pavement. The acquired experience allows you to do without the "oven", from which you need to dance. As before, cuts are taken from each log of wooden structures for dendrochronological analysis, but now the date is determined immediately at the excavation site, since the Novgorod dendrochronology has been developed in detail and the necessary schedules have long been built.
The oldest date that dendrochronology gives so far for the Novgorod cultural layer is 953. As in the first year of excavations, so to this day there are no layers of the IX century, to which the first mention of Novgorod dates back (just as layers of the IX century are unknown in Kiev, Smolensk, Chernihiv, Pskov, and in general in all ancient Russian cities that appeared, like Novgorod, at the end of the IX century). They probably won't be found, since they've disappeared. After all, the first settlements in Novgorod were negligible compared to the territory of the modern city. Undoubtedly, they occupied the most convenient places for building, so buildings were built here during all eleven centuries of Novgorod history. If so, then the ninth-and early tenth-century stratum was inevitably destroyed by the perekopes, and things of this time must occur in later strata. And they are found there, but, having a wide dating, within two or three centuries, they cannot be distinguished from the general mass.
The Novgorod expedition rejected the explanation that was given earlier to the name of Novgorod and was reduced to contrasting it with imaginary antipodes - either Staraya Ladoga, or Staraya Russa. Apparently, the name" Novgorod " was given not so much to the city as to its new fortifications. This may have happened when new common fortifications were built around all three original villages (or two of them located on the same bank), which previously had only their own small ramparts or palisades of a small length.
The finds in Novgorod show the unity of Russian culture. Almost every item found here can be found analogies in other Russian cities. For example, the construction of houses, the shape and material of ridges are approximately the same, and even trade relations are similar. Not only are the forms of many things the same, but also the complex of finds as a whole. The difference lies in the mass content of the material, which opens up the greatest opportunities for research. This is the advantage of the Novgorod expedition.
Novgorod became a research center for ancient Russian cities and a training school for archaeologists. Many participants in the excavations in Novgorod have long been leading other expeditions: A. L. Mongayt-excavations in Staraya Ryazan, A. F. Medvedev-in Staraya Russa, D. A. Avdusin-in Smolensk, in Pskov digs "Novgorodka" I. K. Labutin, excavations in other places are led by V. V. Sedov, M. V. Sedova, M. D. Poluboyarinova, V. I. Matveeva, N. S. Shelyapina and others.
Excavations in Novgorod are steps into the unknown. The Novgorod expedition carried out a whole chain of interrelated discoveries, some of which its team foresaw. The work of the expedition is an example of scientific cooperation, collective activity, perseverance in achieving the intended goal and organizational talent. The results of the Novgorod expedition were widely known and recognized. In 1966, A. V. Artsikhovsky and V. L. Yanin were awarded the Lomonosov Prize for their discoveries in Novgorod. Awarding the 1970 State Prize to the team of the Novgorod Expedition represented by A.V. Artsikhovsky, V. L. Yanin, B. A. Kolchin, P. I. Zasurtsev, and A. F. Medvedev is a well-deserved assessment of his great work and success.
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