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Культ коня в Великом Новгородестатья
- Автор: Тянина Е.А.
- Сборник: Усадьба X–XI веков в Людином конце средневекового Новгорода (по материалам усадьбы "Ж" Троицкого раскопа)
- Редактор: Сингх Виктор Кашмирович
- Глава в коллективной монографии
- Год издания: 2020
- Издательство: ФГБУ "Издательство "Наука"
- Местоположение издательства: Москва
- Первая страница: 70
- Последняя страница: 84
- Аннотация: The cult of the horse in Novgorod traces its origins back to pagan, pre-Christian times. Archаeological evidence of this cult — amulets and the remains of ritual ceremonies — has been dated to a period spanning the 10th —14th centuries. An important feature of the cult of the horse are foundation sacrifices: sacrifices that were made during the construction of houses and other buildings. In Novgorod the Great there have been multiple finds of horse skulls buried beneath house foundations. The horse’s spirit was meant to be reborn as the new “home spirit” (domovoi), which was supposed to protect the inhabitants of the house and guarantee their prosperity. This tradition existed across centuries and remained largely unchanged. The sacrifice was almost always a skull that lacked the lower jaw, and when the jaw was present, it was not attached to the skull, but instead placed next to it. This demonstrates that the foundation sacrifice was meant to be the bones, rather than the complete head of an animal. There, also, appears to not have been a rule regarding the depth at or the corner of the building beneath which the skull should have been buried. The importance of foundation sacrifices was not only in protecting a house’s inhabitants, but also in guaranteeing the prosperity of a newly established settlement. An instance of this use of foundation sacrifice is the burial of an entire (probably live) horse at the Iliinsky excavation site (second quarter — middle of 11th century): the horse’s grave most likely marked the boundary of the first settlement at this location. Similar foundation sacrifices that include horse skulls are well-known among Germanic tribes and on the territory of Ukraine and the Baltic states. However, horse skulls were used not only in foundation sacrifices, but also in a wide range of other rituals, as evidenced by ethnographic materials: a horse skull was paraded around on a stick and then thrown into a fire during the Kupala Night holiday, and the practice of hanging horse skulls on poles as a precaution against evil spirits was common. The many depictions of horses in the decorative ornaments and motifs on both the inside and outside of houses (on the roof, shutters, porch) indicate the importance of the horse theme in architecture as well. The presence of a cult of the horse in Novgorod is also evidenced by findings of equine bone amulets. However, only 11 out of 230 medieval amulets found in Novgorod were made out of horse bones (10 out of the carpal and tarsal bones and 1 out of an equine canine). Most of the equine bone amulets were found in the cultural layers dating to the 10th — mid 13th centuries and were geographically located in Lyudin’s End of Novgorod at the Troitsky excavation site. Thus, despite their small number, these finds show that the tradition of using equine bones as amulets existed steadily over the course of several centuries. The most prized parts of the horse were the skull and the leg bones — used both for foundation sacrifices and amulets. Overall, it is clear that the cult of the horse was important in medieval Novgorod the Great: the horse acted as a keeper and protector of the house and a symbol of prosperity.
- Добавил в систему: Сингх Виктор Кашмирович