NEW BURIAL FROM KYTAIV BARROW CEMETERY: DISCUSSING THE OLD RUS QUASI-CHAMBERS

Abstract

In 2021, on the territory of the second mound group of the Kytaiv Cemetery on the outskirts of Kyiv the authors discovered the inhumation burial in a coffin placed in a wooden funeral chamber. Burials with wooden structures made directly in the grave pit have been widespread in Northern and Eastern Europe of the Viking Age and are well known in the literature as chamber burials. Some modern researchers distinguish among the early medieval burials the category of so-called «quasi-chambers» which are similar to original chamber tombs but differ from them in certain important structural and ritual elements. In our opinion, the burial complexes, combining wooden walls and «movable» coffin, as the one under discussion, should also be included into this category. They differ from original chambers by general semantics of the rite and usually are later chronologically. In the 1910s and 1970s, similar assemblages were excavated in the first barrow group of the cemetery. According to the grave goods the newly discovered burial can be considered ordinary, and the mound over the burial chamber is one of the smallest in the mound group. Thus, at least in the territory of the Kyiv area the chambers with coffins at the late 10th and early 11th centuries became a mass phenomenon, losing the elitist character inherent in original chamber tombs. Compared to the latter the design of burial structures is also showing clear signs of simplification. The obtained results prove the expediency of classification the chambers with coffins as one of the types of Old Rus quasi-chamber burials. Further theoretical developments in this direction and new excavations should complement the reconstructed vision of religious, social and political progress of the population of Old Rus at the stage of statehood formation.