Secret burials. Mysterious burials (5 photos)

Incredible facts

We tend to think of archaeologists as dusty experts who study people and their cultures through artifacts and human remains.

But sometimes they are more like ancient storytellers who, with the help found antiquities They tell the most interesting stories that magically transport us to distant times and places.

In the stories below, we are transported to the ancient worlds of long-forgotten children. Some stories touch your heart, others are simply mysterious, and some are terrible.

10. Revival of Oriens

In October 2013, in a field in Leicestershire, England, a treasure hunter used a metal detector to discover meter-long coffin of a Roman child. To avoid talking about the child in the third person, the scientific community decided to name him "Oriens", which means "to rise" (like the Sun).

It is believed that Oriens was buried in the 3rd-4th centuries. It is not known for certain how old the child was, but the bracelets on his hands suggest that it was a girl.

Bracelets from a girl's hand

Bracelets Clasp

Oriens must have lived in rich family or her relatives were tall social status, because she was found in a lead coffin, which was rare at that time, especially in matters of child burials.

Coffin inside

Most children were then interred, dressed in a shroud (clothing for the deceased). Only a few bone fragments remained from the baby. However, archaeologists have been able to piece together some details of her life, including information about the society in which she lived.

They learned a lot by analyzing some of the resins found in her coffin.

Oriens baby teeth

According to the stories of Stuart Palmer from the Warwickshire archaeological team ( Archeology Warwickshire), presence frankincense, olive oil, as well as pistachio nut oil in the soil, found in the coffin suggests that Oriensa can be classified as one of the very few Roman burials of people with the highest status.

The girl was buried according to very expensive Mediterranean and Middle Eastern customs.

"Nails" that held the internal components of the coffin

The resins masked the smell of a decomposing body during afterlife rituals, which, according to the ancients, made the transition to the afterlife easier. From a social point of view, this suggests that the inhabitants of Roman Britain continued to follow continental burial rites, so they must have imported oils and resins from the Middle East.

9. Secrets of a child singer

Almost 3000 years ago, seven-year-old Tjayasetimu sang in the choir in the temple of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Despite the fact that the girl took most of the secrets with her to the grave, the curators of the British Museum, where her mummy was exhibited in 2014, were able to find out some details about the child.

It is not known for certain where she lived and worked, because the British Museum bought the mummy from a dealer back in 1888. However, Tjayasetimu's body is incredibly well preserved. In the 1970s, as part of a restoration project, they found hieroglyphs and drawings under bandages blackened by oils on the body.

Tools that Tjayasetimu may have used

Thanks to the inscriptions, it was possible to find out her name and position. The name Tjayasetimu, which means "the goddess Isis will defeat them", protects against evil spirits. Her work as a singer in the temple was considered very important to the god Amun.

The reason why the girl received such a “position” is also unknown: her voice or family connections. What is known is that she was an important person because her body was mummified with a golden mask on her face.

Scan reveals baby girl's teeth

In 2013, a CT scan showed that her body, including her face and hair, was still well preserved. With no signs of long-term illness or injury, she is believed to have died from a short-term illness such as cholera.

8. The Mystery of the Sewer Babies

In the Roman Empire, infanticide was widely practiced to limit family size because reliable methods of birth control did not exist. This helped conserve scarce resources and improve the lives of other family members.

Children under 6 months of age were not treated as human beings at all in Roman society.

A burial was discovered in this well

However, even knowing this fact, researchers were still horrified when in 1988 in Ashkelon, on south coast Israel, made a terrible discovery. Archaeologists have discovered a mass grave of almost 100 children in an ancient sewer underneath Roman baths.

Church ruins in Ashkelon

Most of the bones found were intact, and scientists believe the children were thrown into the sewer immediately after death. Considering the general age of the children and the absence of signs of disease, the cause of death was almost certainly infanticide.

Based on these bones, experts determined that the dead were infants.

Although the Romans favored male children, researchers have been unable to find evidence that they intentionally killed more female babies. They were unable to find confirmation of this even when studying this find.

Some experts note that the bathhouse above the sewer also worked as a brothel. They suggest that the babies were the unwanted children of the women of the ancient profession who worked there.

Some female infants may have been spared their lives so that they would later become courtesans. Despite the fact that in the Roman Empire both women and men were engaged in the most ancient profession, the former were still more in demand.

Ancient archaeological site

7. An unusual child metal workers

About 4,000 years ago in prehistoric Britain, children were given the task of decorating jewelry and weapons with gold threads as thin as human hair. On some specimens there were more than 1000 such threads per square centimeter of wood.

Scientists discovered this after an ornate wooden dagger handle was found in the Bush Mound area near Stonehenge in the 1800s.

Daggers found at the same time in Bush. Salisbury Plain. Were discovered in the richest and most important grave Bronze Age, among all ever found in Britain

The work is so exquisite that naked eye It's hard to see all the details. After research, experts came to the conclusion that, most likely, teenagers and children under the age of 10 were the authors of such extraordinary craftsmanship on the handle of the dagger.

Without a magnifying glass, an ordinary adult would not be able to do this because his vision is not sharp enough. After the age of 21, a person’s vision gradually begins to deteriorate.

Although the children used simple tools, they had a special understanding of design and geometry. However, for the beautiful handmade they paid a high price. Their vision quickly deteriorated myopathy overtook them at the age of 15, and by the age of 20 they were already partially blind.

This made them unsuitable for other work, so they had to rely on their communities.

6. Very good parents

Believing that the attitude of some scientists towards Neanderthals was not entirely objective, archaeologists from the University of York decided to rewrite the history of these prehistoric people. Until recently it was believed that Neanderthal children lived dangerous, difficult and short lives.

However, the team of the above archaeologists came to different conclusions after studying the social and cultural factors lives of the first people according to finds from different times in different places throughout Europe.

"Opinions about Neanderthals are changing," says Penny Spikins, lead researcher. “Partly due to the fact that they mated with us, and this already speaks of our similarity. But the latest findings turned out to be no less important. There is a fundamental difference between harsh childhood and a childhood spent in harsh conditions."

A Neanderthal child examines his reflection in the water. Neanderthal Museum in Kropina, Croatia

Spikins believes that Neanderthal children were very attached to their families, and families were close-knit. He also notes that children were trained to handle tools. In two places different countries A team of archaeologists discovered stones that were well processed compared to others that were chipped.

They looked like children were learning from adults how to make tools.

Although there is no conclusive evidence for this claim, Spikins believes that prehistoric children "played peek-a-boo" in imitation of adults, because the same "game" was played by humans and great apes.

When studying the burials of Neanderthal infants and children, Spikins came to the conclusion that parents interred their offspring with great care, since the remains of children, rather than adults, that have survived to this day were more often found.

The archaeological team also emphasizes that there is evidence that parents cared for their sick or injured children for several years.

The most ancient finds of archaeologists

5. Boy Scouts of Ancient Egypt

To learn about how children lived in the Ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, historians examined about 7,500 documents believed to be from the sixth century. The city was home to more than 25,000 people, and was considered the Roman administrative center of its area, in which Egypt's weaving industry flourished.

More than a century ago, artifacts from the time of the existence of Oxyrhynchus were found, after analyzing which historians came to the conclusion that a youth group of Boy Scouts, known as the “gymnasium,” was actively working in Ancient Egypt. young people were trained to become good citizens.

Boys on a camel. Mosaic from Late Antiquity, early 6th century.

Great Palace Mosaic Museum in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Boys born into free Egyptian, Greek and Roman families were accepted for education. Despite its "affluent" demographics, gymnasium membership was limited to 10-25 percent of the city's families.

For boys who applied to study at the gymnasium, this was a transition to adulthood. They became full-fledged adults when they married in their early twenties. Girls who married in adolescence, prepared for their role by working in their parents' homes.

Boys from free families who did not go to grammar schools began to work as children under contract for several years. Many contracts were for work in weaving production.

Roman boy with hair in Egyptian style. A side strand of hair is cut off and sacrificed to the gods for the upcoming coming of age ceremony. First half of the second century AD. Museum of Cultural History, Oslo.

Historians have discovered one student contract concluded with a girl. But, as it turned out, her case was unique because she was an orphan and had to pay off the debts of her late father.

Children of slaves could enter into the same work contracts as boys born into free families. But unlike the latter, who lived with their families, the children of slaves could be sold. In this case, they lived with their owners. Discovered documents showed that some slave children were sold as early as two years old.

4. The mystery of the “elk” geoglyph

In this story, our discovery of the past is driven by curiosity about what the future will hold. Images taken from space in 2011 revealed the existence of a giant elk geoglyph (a geometric pattern painted on the ground) in the Ural Mountains, which is believed to predate the famous thousand-year-old Nazca geoglyphs found in Peru.

A type of masonry known as "chipstone" suggests that the structure may have been built around 3000 - 4000 BC. BC.

Nazca geoglyphs

The structure is about 275 meters long with two horns, four legs and a long snout facing north. In prehistoric times, the geoglyph could be seen from a nearby ridge. He looked like a shiny white figure against the green grass. Today this place is covered with soil.

Archaeologists were amazed at the thoughtfulness of the design. “The elk’s hooves were made of small crushed stones and clay,” explains Stanislav Grigoriev, specialist Russian Academy Sci. "The walls were very low, I believe, and the passages between them were very narrow. The situation was also in the muzzle area: rubble and clay, four small wide walls and three passages."

"Moose" geoglyph

The researchers also found evidence of two sites where fires were lit only once. They believe that these places were used for important rituals.

However, many questions remain unanswered, especially such as: who built this geoglyph and why. There is no archaeological evidence that the culture during this period was so advanced that people could have built such a structure in this region.

But experts believe that the most interesting discovery concerns children. They were able to find more than 150 instruments at the site, ranging in length from 2 to 17 centimeters. They believe that these instruments belonged to children who worked side by side with adults as part of a community project.

That is, it was not slave labor, but joint efforts in order to achieve an important goal.

Archeology: finds

3. Children of the clouds

In July 2013, in the high-altitude Amazonas region of Peru, archaeologists discovered 35 sarcophagi, each no more than 70 centimeters long. The small coffins led researchers to believe they belonged to children. mysterious culture The Chachapoya, also known as the "cloud warriors" because they lived in the rainforests of the mountains.

Between the 9th century and 1475, when their territories were conquered by the Incas, the Chachapoya founded villages and farms on steep mountain slopes, raised pigs and llamas there, and fought among themselves.

Their culture was eventually destroyed by diseases such as smallpox that European explorers brought with them.

Very little is known about the Chachapoyas and their children because they did not leave any written language behind. However, according to Spanish documents from the 1500s, they were fierce warriors.

Pedro Cieza de Leon, who chronicled the history of Peru, described them as follows: appearance: "They are the whitest and most beautiful of all the people I have seen in India, and their wives are so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserve to be the wives of the Incas and live in the temple of the Sun."

But these cloud warriors did leave something behind: mummified bodies in unusual and strange sarcophagi that were found on high ledges overlooking the valley. The clay coffins were arranged vertically and were very similar in design to the decoration of people: tunics, jewelry and even trophy skulls.

But no one knows why children were buried in their own cemetery separately from adults. It is also unclear why all the small sarcophagi “looked” to the west, while the adult coffins were positioned differently.

Mysterious archaeological finds

2. Gifts to the gods of the lakes

Ancient Bronze Age villages spread out around the alpine lakes of Germany and Switzerland. When some of the villages were discovered during excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, archaeologists couldn't be happier because they found more than 160 houses aged 2600 - 3800 years.

These were houses along the shoreline of the lake that were flooded. To protect themselves from rising water levels, residents often moved to less dangerous areas, closer to land. When conditions improved, they returned again.

Anything happens in the life of each of us. There are also mysterious cases, which are simply impossible to explain from generally accepted positions. They stand apart cemetery stories, because they are directly related to other world, in which we will all eventually find ourselves. The secrets of the graves - this is how one can characterize those stunning phenomena that individual eyewitnesses witness from time to time when they come to the cemetery. But let's look at specific cases and make sure that they deserve close attention and study.

First story

In the late autumn of 1932, Mr. Arthur Hasman arrived in his hometown of Inverness, in the north of Scotland. He spent his childhood here, and close relatives were buried here. Actually, to honor the memory of the deceased, the above-mentioned gentleman came from London. Therefore, having rested a little after the trip, Hazman headed to the cemetery. He visited the grave of his father and mother, stood near the monument to his recently deceased aunt, and then headed to the grave of Uncle Roger.

It was located in the western part of the cemetery, and next to it stood a tombstone with an angel carved on it. Soon Arthur noticed remarkable monument, but when I approached him, I didn’t see my uncle’s grave nearby. In the place where his remains had previously rested, there was an absolutely flat piece of land with withered autumn grass.

The newcomer looked around in confusion. He decided that he was in the wrong place. But it was simply impossible. Hazman visited the cemetery regularly once every 5 years. In past times, my uncle’s grave was located in this very place, but now for some reason it was not there.

The man went to the cemetery watchman and explained the situation to him. He took out a diagram of the cemetery and laid it out on the table. On it, Roger's grave was in the place where Arthur had been just 10 minutes earlier. That is, the visitor was not mistaken and came exactly where he needed to go. The watchman finally dispelled all doubts. He said that a couple of years ago he saw both a monument with an angel and a tombstone next to it. But when the men arrived at the place, they again stared at an absolutely flat piece of land.

The next day, the watchman finally found the missing grave. But she ended up 300 meters from her previous place. However, the tombstone was in in perfect order, and the dates of Sir Roger's birth and death clearly appeared on it. The cemetery worker could not explain this phenomenon. From a community point of view, such a move did not make any sense.

Arthur called his aunt in London. She also regularly visited the deceased, and knew very well the location of all the graves. She arrived a couple of days later and was convinced for herself that someone had moved the gravestone. All this looked blasphemous, and the lady raised a scandal. Local authorities were completely at a loss and expressed their readiness to return the slab to its place.

However, the aunt decided to get to the mortal remains and check if they were intact. Maybe grave thieves dug up the grave and violated Roger's body. Diggers came and dug a deep hole, but no traces of remains were found. This shocked the relatives of the deceased. The cemetery employees were also completely at a loss.

Arthur Hazman suggested excavating the place where the tombstone was discovered. He suggested that some pranksters had moved the mortal remains to a new location. The diggers began to dig without any enthusiasm. However, at a depth of 2 meters they came across a half-rotten coffin. The lid was removed from it, and everyone saw a skeleton with the remains of decayed clothing. The aunt told her nephew that the deceased had right hand there should be a massive gold ring. The man went down to the grave and actually found this decoration on the hand of the deceased.

After this, all doubts about the authenticity of Sir Roger’s corpse disappeared, but the mysterious incident itself ended up in cemetery stories, and the secrets of the graves appeared before people in all their mystical glory. How did the coffin and the tombstone end up in a different place? However, there were no traces of reburial. The boards of the coffin, one might say, have grown into the ground. It seemed that no one had ever done excavation work in this place before.

Scottish newspapers wrote a lot about this story. The police were investigating the strange case. But not a single version was put forward. No one saw the intruders, or whether they actually existed. The coffin and tombstone were returned to their place, and the strange incident was forgotten over time.

Second story

A strange incident, which can be described as the secrets of the graves, happened in 1763 in southern Germany near the city of Ravensburg. It was witnessed by several shepherds driving a herd of cows. On the river bank they discovered a grave with a large tombstone. There was an inscription on it: “Here lie the remains of the venerable Christina Bauer.”

The shepherds drove their flock past this place every day. But there was no grave. The coast was always clear. The entire space was occupied only by grass, and bushes grew in the distance. Therefore, the people who discovered the unusual find told everything to the priest. He came to the grave and was incredibly surprised. The priest knew this grave and the woman buried in it very well. They checked the cemetery, and in the place where Christina Bauer had previously rested, they saw a completely flat and empty piece of land.

Excavations were carried out near the river and in the cemetery. The coffin with the remains, contrary to all reason, was found on the shore. But they decided not to return the grave to its old place. The priest reasoned that apparently it was as it pleased higher powers. The spirit of the deceased woman moved the remains of her mortal body to a place that was apparently more convenient for him. This grave long years brought fear to local residents. During the First World War it was destroyed.

Third story

Cemetery stories find their way into our days. In 1993, a mysterious incident happened on the territory of the Foley Creek farm in Kansas (USA). Farmer John Barney left his house early in the morning and saw a gravestone right in the middle of the yard. The frightened farmer immediately called the police.

The grave that appeared inexplicably was carefully examined. Apparently she was very old, since the inscription on the stone was almost erased. The farmer's house was located 5 kilometers from the nearest dwelling; the gate to the yard was always locked. At night the owner of the house let the dogs out. So silly joke was completely excluded.

The grave was dug up and a rotted coffin with human remains was discovered. All this had grown so deep into the ground that it seemed as if the grave had moved into the farmer’s yard along with several cubic meters of earth. We had to use an excavator to clear the yard of unwanted burial.

The remains were transported several kilometers and buried near a cemetery located in the suburbs of the nearest city. No one has been able to establish who owned the grave and where it used to be. This mysterious incident has been illuminated by many means mass media America. But most residents considered it a newspaper duck.

Conclusion

What puts representatives of civilization into a state of stupor is not at all something unusual among some tribes of Africa. Their cemetery stories are inextricably linked to the movement of graves. Tribes have a custom of dousing a fresh grave with tree sap and casting spells. This is done so that the grave does not leave its place. The people of Haiti behave in exactly the same way. And among some peoples of Oceania, it is customary to bury two dead people in one grave at once. If the soul of one of them wants to change place, then the second soul will resist this.

The secrets of graves, their ability to move in space, arouse genuine interest among people. However, this amazing phenomenon has not yet been solved. In addition, official science is very skeptical about such facts. Therefore, serious research is not being conducted in this area.

Beyond the Yauza River, on the territory of the former German Settlement, there is the most unusual necropolis in Moscow - the Vvedenskoye Cemetery. The patina of neglect inherent in any churchyard is special here - natural, lively, filled with romance. Along the alleys and paths there are plaster vases and marble crucifixes, tombstones with Gothic inscriptions and unusual chapels, mournful female figures and angels with drooping wings. There is a special charm in leisurely walks around the Vvedensky cemetery. Squeezing between the fences and deciphering the inscriptions on the tombstones, you experience not only grief and despondency, but also the need to reflect, open a book, and get acquainted with the life stories of departed people.

The cemetery received its official name from the Vvedenskaya Mountain, but among the people it was more often called Infidel, or German. An area of ​​20 hectares fenced with a brick fence has become a piece of Western Europe on Russian soil. Since the time of Peter I, non-Orthodox Christians - Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans - have been buried here. The cemetery land reconciled not only representatives of different faiths, but also those who fought each other on the battlefields. After passing through the southern gate, to the right of the central alley you will see a chain-linked mass grave soldier of the Napoleonic army. And to the left of the alley is an obelisk in memory of the Russian soldiers who died from wounds received on the Borodino field.

IN mid-19th centuries, enterprising Europeans have been flocking to the Mother See. The graves of foreign bankers, industrialists and merchants appear at the Vvedensky Cemetery. But during the First World War, foreigners left Russia en masse. Some of the graves are falling into disrepair, and names on some slabs are erased. In the first decades of Soviet power, Russian priests, scientists and military personnel were buried in the cemetery. After the Great Patriotic War people's graves appear creative professions. Whom you will meet here! Theater and film figures - Rina Zelenaya, Mikhail Kozakov, Lucyena Ovchinnikova, ballerina Olga Lepeshinskaya, pianist David Lerner, sports commentator Nikolai Ozerov, Opera singer Maria Maksakova, architects Melnikov brothers, historian Sigurd Schmidt, composer Eduard Kolmanovsky. On the main alley lies the actor Gennady Bortnikov, who was called the “Russian Gerard Philippe,” and buried near the southern wall People's Artist Tatyana Peltzer is a “happy old woman,” as she called herself.

The grave of ballerina Olga Lepeshinskaya. Photo: Igor Stomakhin/website

Fatal date

The silence of the Vvedensky cemetery is broken by the singing of nightingales and the rustling of centuries-old trees, rustling autumn foliage and the grinding sound of a street sweeper. To an impressionable person, these sounds seem like conversations of those who have passed on to another world. This is not surprising: Vvedenskoye Cemetery keeps many secrets and legends. One of the legends is connected with General Gordon, a native of Scotland, an ally of Peter I, who loved to drink and fool around. At the beginning of the 20th century, someone tore out sheets from the cemetery register indicating the place where the tombstone of a Scotsman who was in the royal service was located. Since then, the general has been wandering the alleys in search of the lost grave, clicking his heels and scaring visitors with shouts in guttural Gaelic.

Another legend says that under the cemetery Vvedensky Hill there is the whole city, consisting of many dungeons and catacombs. You can enter the underground “Vvedenka” only through one of the ancient crypts. But no one knows what kind of crypt it is and in what part of the cemetery it is located. But the story of a priest is known, whose grave is decorated with a white marble cross and a mournful statue of an angel. According to contemporaries, the priest had a beautiful dramatic baritone. One day, as they say, he was misled by a demon. Pop got a job at the opera and began singing on stage. The success was incredible, but soon the maestro lost his voice, and then his legs lost power. The priest suffered for a long time, blaming himself for betraying the Lord, and died only when he begged forgiveness for himself.

The saddest legend is associated with the story of the spouses Leon and Sophia Plo, buried in the same grave. The husband was engaged in the supply of iron and cast iron to Russia, the stunningly beautiful wife ran a glove shop on Kuznetsky Most. One day it seemed to the husband that his missus was secretly meeting with her lover. Leon ordered a carver to make a stone figure in the form of a half-dressed woman sneaking out on a date. When the composition was ready, the husband came home and killed first his wife, and then himself. The sculpture was installed as a tombstone. An attractive lady in a negligee once clutched a stone rose in her hands, whose petals fell onto the slab. The rose was broken off by vandals, but now the statue always holds a living flower brought by one of the visitors.

Vampire

Engineer Maximilian Erlanger brought the first steam mill to Russia and built a plant in Sokolniki, which still produces rye and wheat bread. The tomb of the “flour king” was built according to the design of the architect Fyodor Shekhtel. Inside is a fresco by artist Petrov-Vodkin illuminated by a lamp. Christ in colored robes scatters grain on a plowed field. The plot reminds people that they should sow good deeds. The icon is considered miraculous, and many believe that wishes written on the wall of the crypt will definitely come true. The walls of the chapel are covered with pencils and markers. People turn to Jesus with requests for a good job and the desire to earn big money, for healing from drunkenness and the return of a loved one.

The mausoleum of the manufacturer and “father of Russian chintz” Ludwig Knopp is made in the form of a dilapidated antique portico. One day, an adventurer climbed inside and came across a dead hand sticking out of the ground. Since then, the crypt has been popularly called “Vampire”. Until the 1940s, a statue of Christ by Italian sculptor Raffaello Romanelli. When pilgrims came here, they brought water with them and poured it on the hand of Jesus pointing down to the earth. It was believed that the drained water acquired miraculous healing properties.

Mausoleum of Ludwig Knopp. Photo: Igor Stomakhin/website

In recent years, “Vampire” has become a sacred place for representatives of the Goth subculture - guys and girls with eyeliner, wearing high lace-up boots. Goths talk about the special cemetery energy that gives them strength, about the aesthetics of death and the alluring secrets of the afterlife. Judging by the mysterious anagrams, inscriptions with the word “Apocalypse” and scattered pigeon feathers, ritual orgies like “black masses” and “Satan’s balls” are held here. Several years ago, security at the Vvedenskoye Cemetery was strengthened and the plots were equipped with a video surveillance system. There are fewer goths, but they still appear, especially on the eve of November 1 - All Saints' Day and Halloween. By the way, on November 2, when All Souls' Day is celebrated, representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, led by the cardinal, hold a solemn mass and religious procession at the Vvedensky cemetery.

Door to the underworld

At the grave of Georg Lyon and Alexandra Rozhnova there is a semicircular colonnade with mosaic panel— a copy of the artist Arnold Böcklin’s painting “Island of the Dead.” A boat floats up to the cemetery gate, located among the hills, in which there are two people - a rower and a woman wrapped in white cloth. The symbolism is easy to decipher. The image of the mountains embodies the kingdom of the dead - Hades. The boatman Charon transports a shrouded soul across the River Styx.

Worth seeing and unusual monument on the grave of the railway figure Christian Meyen. The cross is welded from rail strips mounted on locomotive wheels; the tombstone is decorated with carriage buffers and coupling devices. An equally amazing tombstone on the grave of Apollinary Vasnetsov is made in the form of a swallowtail, reminiscent of the battlements of the Kremlin walls. Vasnetsov was the only artist, who opposed the destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. In his paintings he restored historical view Moscow Kremlin - from the era of Ivan Kalita to the era of Dmitry Donskoy. Not far from the “swallow’s tail,” the Sirin Bird sits with its wings spread. This work by sculptor Sergei Konenkov was installed on the grave of the writer Mikhail Prishvin. Throwing back its head, the fairy-tale bird sings along with the trees and animals that the “singer of Russian nature” wrote about.

The sculpture Bird Sirin is the work of Sergei Konenkov on the grave of the writer Mikhail Prishvin. Photo: Igor Stomakhin/website

On the tombstone of winemaker Philippe des Pres you can read a message expressed in the language of mysterious cemetery symbolism. The marble tombstone is an ancient Roman temple portal. On the left and right there are fern branches representing infinity. Six-pointed stars - hexagrams - remind of the six days of the creation of the world. One star is framed by a wreath of roses. Rose in funeral tradition means victory over death, the transience and frailty of life. They say that on the night of the full moon, rays shine between the stars, forming a bright Latin cross on the marble. The entire composition is nothing more than a door to enter afterworld and going out at the hour of resurrection.

Shackles on the grave

Ferdinand Theodor von Einem founded a confectionery factory, familiar to us as “Red October” on Bersenyevskaya Embankment, which now houses fashionable establishments - galleries, theaters, clubs. At his Moscow enterprise, the decent German established an eight-hour working day, opened a dormitory and a mutual aid fund, and began paying pensions to the best employees. Einem was an honest industrialist and employer. Nowadays, people come to his grave who want to do honest business without bribes and kickbacks.

In 2008, during the inventory of ownerless graves and the re-registration of documents at the Vvedensky cemetery, the grave of Lucien Olivier, a French chef who ran the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow, was found. Inventor of the famous dish that no one can do without New Year's table, lived only 45 years. The master kept the recipe for his miracle salad in deep secret and took it with him to the grave. Young men and women often appear at the monument erected at Olivier’s burial site. Students of culinary universities and technical schools come here before exams to enlist the support of the famous gastronome.

The most revered burial at the Vvedensky cemetery is the grave of the doctor Fyodor Gaaz. His motto was famous phrase: “Hurry to do good!”

Haaz refused to charge poor people for therapy and donated his own clothes to those in need. He achieved the opening of infirmaries for prisoners, the separation of convicts from suspects, and the abolition of haircuts for female defendants. Fyodor Gaaz invented a new type of shackles - lighter and trimmed with leather inside. The “holy doctor” spent all his money on alleviating the lot of the sick and prisoners. He was buried at the expense of the police. Tens of thousands of people followed the coffin. A tombstone in the form of Golgotha ​​was installed on the grave - a stone symbolizing a mountain, and on top - a cross. The monument is surrounded by chains with merciful “Haazovian” shackles. According to tradition, flowers are brought here by those who have been released from prison, as well as by citizens who suffered innocently.

"Vampire graves" are found throughout Europe. These could be burials with a severed head or a body crushed by stones, or they could simply be remains turned face down. It is curious, but the initial interpretation of all such burials as “vampire graves” was proposed not even by a professional scientist, but only by a worker who worked on one of the excavations.

Interest in everything mysterious and a throwback to the past of current ideas have done their job: the far from indisputable version has become commonplace V scientific works and in the mass media. Correspondents, together with Polish historians, decided to test the strength of this hypothesis.

Publications regularly appear in the world press and even in serious scientific journals about how archaeologists are finding more and more vampire graves. In 2009, Italian criminologists declared a vampire a woman whose skull with a brick in her teeth was found on the island of Lazzaretto Nuovo (Venice) among those who died during the plague epidemic in the 16th century. In 2011, two men from 9th century burials in Kilteshin (Ireland) were called vampires (and perhaps the oldest in Europe).

The stones in the mouth, according to archaeologists, were supposed to prevent them from rising from their graves and harming living beings. But most often, the graves of ghouls are found in Poland: from Western Pomerania to Podkarpackie and from Krakow to Gdansk. Perhaps this is because the fear of vampires began to spread across Europe from Slavic folklore, and in Poland ghouls haunted people more often than in other places (at least that's what their victims believed).

A new generation of Polish scientists proposed a different, no less interesting hypothesis: numerous “vampire graves” arose due to methodological errors and speculations of twentieth-century archaeologists, who easily gave all the unusual burials to bloodsuckers. The authors of an article in the journal World Archeology created a typology of strange graves and examined a variety of options for their occurrence - from the ineptitude of gravediggers to the demonstrative executions of criminals.

Living and dead

Determining the real status of sorcerers, witches, werewolves and ghouls remains one of the most intriguing questions in history and anthropology. It is still unclear whether they actually existed (at least as people consciously practicing forbidden magical rituals) or were simply sick innocent people, victims of slander, phobias and psychoses of relatives and neighbors. Suffice it to recall the massive witch hunts that affected many countries, in which thousands of people became victims.

The same vampirism can be explained by a rare genetic blood disease (porphyria), the symptoms of which fit into the appearance of a classic ghoul. Sunlight is contraindicated for patients; the skin around the lips and gums dries out, causing the incisors to be exposed to the gums; porphyrin settles on the teeth, staining them red.

But, no matter who witches and vampires actually were, their existence was an indisputable fact of the psychology and spiritual life of people of the Middle Ages, which, in turn, influenced material life. Scientists have to reconstruct the true events of history and their psychological motives, including using objects such as burials.

In the Middle Ages, in the lands of the Slavs, as in other parts of Europe, the church fought with bitterness against pagan funeral rites. The Slavs and Germans continued to place valuable things in the grave that would be useful to the deceased in the afterlife. During night vigils over the deceased, they performed chants and spells, accompanying them with ritual dances. The priests had an extremely negative attitude towards this: after all, according to Christian teaching, a person’s soul went to heaven or hell, to God, and not to a special “ world of the dead", where, according to common people, it was necessary to ensure a safe passage with the help of magical rituals so that the deceased would not harm the living.

However, even with the spread of Christianity among the broad masses of Europeans (including Slavs), the division of the dead into “pure”, those who died a natural death, and “unclean” remained - this category could include suicides, drowned people, executed people, infidels, sorcerers and unbaptized babies. Such dead people were buried behind the fence of the church, at a crossroads or other in an unusual way- because they were afraid that they would return to harm the world of the living.

Unbearable ease of interpretation

In 1957, historian Bonifacy Zielonka published an article describing unusual burials in Kuyavia (northern Poland): a woman buried face down and a headless man (the skull was found between his legs). One of the workers at the excavation decided that in front of him was the grave of a witch (strhiga) - and the scientist agreed with this version! WITH light hand An unknown shovel worker, such an interpretation entered scientific use.

Excavations at the ancient cemetery of “vampires” in Gliwice, Poland

In the 1960s to 1990s, archaeologists described dozens of such burials, but did not seek to speculate about their causes. A short mention of the fact that the dangerous dead were buried in this way in order to prevent them from returning from the other world became a dogma and wandered from one monograph to another. At the same time, historians have no evidence that Western Slavs V early middle ages believed in the “living dead”. Since the 1970s, all strange burials began to be called “anti-vampire”.

Only in the 2000s, archaeologists, joining forces with medieval historians, began to pay due attention to the social and legal context of burials - legal culture The Middle Ages, the study of specific instruments of execution and, most importantly, texts (chronicles and stories about trials and executions of criminals). The authors of the article in World Archeology do not provide a final and indisputable interpretation of the strange burials of the 10th-13th centuries, but invite colleagues and readers to think with them about who, how and why could have been buried in them.

Precautions, mistakes and crimes

The first known atypical burials in Poland date back to the 10th century. Before this, the Western Slavs burned their dead, and from cremated remains it is impossible to detect oddities in the fate of the dead. Archaeologists describe three main types of anomalous burials: the deceased is lying prone, he is decapitated, and stones lie on the corpse.

Schemes of some anomalous burials: from Zlota Pinchowska, Stara Zamek, Tsedyn and Radom

Burials “face down” were found throughout early medieval Europe - among the Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians and Slavs. In Poland, the burial of a young woman from Gwiazdowo (western Poland), discovered back in 1937, is well known. She was buried face down, with her head to the south and her face turned to the west. In the grave lay three temple rings made of lead, a bronze and a silver ring, and an iron knife in a leather sheath.

An abundance of values ​​combined with in an unusual way The location of the deceased became a mystery to archaeologists. In folklore, the first indications of such treatment of the dead are found in the 16th century, and the most famous text (Treatise on Strzyg) tells how in 1674 a Silesian, after death, turned into a Strzygun (demon) drinking blood.

The local priest ordered the grave to be dug up and the dead man to be placed face down, but the next night he rose from the grave again and beat his son to death. Only when the corpse's head was cut off did it stop disturbing the community.

However, archaeologists remind us that behind such picturesque sources of modern times, one can forget that in the Middle Ages people were buried head down when something shameful happened to them in life and who, literally, could not look their neighbors in the eyes. So, for example, the French king Pepin the Short was buried.

They acted in the same way in order to save themselves from the evil eye of the dead man. Finally, we cannot discount the mistakes of the gravediggers, who hastily buried the corpses. That is, the fear that the deceased will return from the other world to drink the blood of the living is not the most likely reason for burials face down.

Headless corpses were found very often in Poland: these were skulls without skeletons, skeletons without skulls, and graves where the skull was reburied. For example, in Dembchino (Western Pomerania) they found the remains of a woman about 50 years old without a head. Her skull was most likely dug out of the ground and reburied face down in the neighborhood.

In Kaldus (Kujawia) a double grave was discovered: a man who, judging by the scars on his vertebrae, had been beheaded, and the woman next to him had her collarbones broken. Of course, beheading in folklore and even in written sources is described as one of the important measures that prevent the dangerous dead from rising from the grave.

However, scientists write, there are more ordinary explanations: the heads of criminals were very often cut off. In many graves, the skulls have characteristic holes made with a sharp instrument: most likely, the severed heads were first hung on stakes and poles.

Thus, in the Middle Ages, they simultaneously punished the criminal and frightened those who might follow his example. Even the wooden stake in the grave, according to stratigraphy, was not a weapon in the fight against vampires, but a means of intimidating the people - having planted a head on it, the pole was stuck into the ground at the top of the hill where the cemetery was located (burial in Wolin, Western Pomerania).

Burial from Tsedyn (artist’s reconstruction)

Finally, graves with stones - more than twenty of them were found in Poland, they date back to the 10th-13th centuries. In such burials, the stone was usually found at the site of the skull (the grave from Tsedyn, in the illustration) or on various parts of the body of the deceased. Scandinavian sources write about stoning as a punishment for witchcraft, but Polish texts are silent about this.

It is quite possible that the stones were designed to keep the dead from leaving their graves, but there is a more prosaic version: the stone held the head of the deceased turned to the side, forcing him to “look” to the east (as required by Christian funeral rites). Everything can be explained even more simply: the stones could protect graves from robbers and wild animals (Radom burial, in the illustration).

Fears and myths

The history of the “vampire graves”, their popularity in scientific world, and then in the media, talks about how often people tend to “overturn” own fears and favorite myths of the past. In the same series - search for images of aliens on rock art and temple frescoes. The people of the Middle Ages lived very difficult life, and they had many fears of their own: of hunger and disease, knights and robbers, the devil and hell, the evil eye and curse, witches and bloodsuckers.

The transition to another world was one of the points where these fears were focused, as well as the means of combating them. Only recently have scientists begun to understand that turning modern ideas to the past not only distorts history, but also gives a much poorer and more faded picture of the past than it actually was.

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Nowadays this story would become the subject of magazine investigations, but in my years official activities such cases were carefully kept secret.

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Strange affair.

They gave me the opportunity to investigate a strange chain of disappearances. For 3 months, people disappeared in the city and the number of hangings grew, and this is really bad. All the losses are like a carbon copy. Relatives are asking for help, but there is no answer. Among the missing were two loaders from different stores, a history teacher, a supply worker from a bicycle factory and five other people. People who are not related to each other in any way. While I was studying the lists of missing people, they pulled me to the colonel, and there was already panic. The son of the second secretary of the city committee has disappeared. The situation is hysterical. They added two lieutenants as my assistants and told me to speed up the search.

We went to visit the relatives of the missing. It took two days to conduct surveys, but no results. The two loaders turned out to know each other. Both regularly changed jobs, and often came to the attention of the authorities, like parasites, going by the strange nicknames Petval and Evgont. They pretended to be poets of the Silver Age. There was also information that they gathered in some abandoned house, where they drank and read poetry. It has not yet been possible to find out what kind of house it is.

City rumors.

At breakfast, my wife asked why I was so gloomy and thoughtful. I had to describe the situation, and in response she said something crazy:

- So you won’t solve the case. Instead of following people you know, it would be better to listen to what people say.

I clarified:

- And what are they saying?

“And they say that there is an old woman in the cemetery who lures people to an open grave, and then people disappear. I think this has something to do with your investigation.

I chuckled:

— Three operatives are investigating the hanging, and the women at the entrance opened it.

Sarcasm is sarcasm, but still, when there are no clues, you will grab onto any version. I sent lieutenants to inspect abandoned houses, and I went to the cemetery. There were two people in the house with the sign “Watchman”: a man and a woman. I showed my ID, and the man managed to introduce himself as the boss.

- What kind of boss are you? — the woman shouted at him. “Look at him, comrade policeman.” How does the earth carry him?

Speaking of land,” I interrupted. - Do you have an unearthed grave to which some old woman takes tours?..

Both stared at me. The woman died first:

“You’re in office, but you’re doing nonsense!”

I demanded a grave register. Arguing among themselves, they gave me a journal in which there were entries with dates, names and numbers of plots.

An open grave.

In today's times of widespread computerization, it is impossible to imagine such a frivolous attitude towards documents. And in 1978, people’s attitude towards papers had not yet been established. I scrolled back three months, when the disappearances began, took a dozen burials at a glance and asked those swearing:

- Lead me to these graves.

- Why take them to see them? Not in a museum! - they answered me. - Follow the numbers. Plan of the cemetery on the wall.

I checked the plan and went. All 12 graves were on the edge of the cemetery. One of them, which was listed as someone named Stakheeva, turned out to be dug up. I was glad to have the opportunity to warm up the careless cemetery workers. I drew up an act, took out a notice not to leave, and intimidated them with responsibility for their bungling, so that they would know in future how to behave. At the same time, I found out that citizen Stakheeva had no relatives and was buried at public expense. About three months ago, two drunks asked about her.

Returning to the station, I learned that my lieutenants had found the address of the abandoned house in which Stakheeva’s corpse was located. We went there and found the bodies of the missing on the second floor. The spectacle is terrible! Several boards were broken in the floor, there was no furniture, and corpses were sitting along the walls! And no other evidence except a decayed book, the cover of which was partially preserved, and the pages were scattered into dust. Who to suspect?...

Old archives helped.

No wonder my wife is a librarian! She managed to dig up in the city archives historical information. It turns out that the industrialist Stakheev was known as a warlock. In addition to the two-story wooden house, he owned a factory and lands. Those whose surnames mostly coincided with the surnames of the bodies found in that room took part in his arrest, execution and requisition. Genealogies from the archive revealed what united the missing. Both loaders turned out to be the grandchildren of the Chairman of the Committee of the Poor Petnov, although through different wives. The history teacher was the daughter of Commissar Pestkovsky, who led the execution. The supplier from the bicycle factory was the son of Reiter's commissioner, who confiscated the merchant's property. And the same information for everyone whose bodies were found in that terrible house.

“Avenges his father,” said the wife.

But I didn’t believe in any afterlife stuff, and besides, much remained unclear. Where is the old woman's corpse? Why was the grave dug up? And where is the secretary's son?

Once again I came to an open grave. Standing before her, as if before an abyss, I asked almost out loud:

- What do you want? Maybe some money?

He felt an iron ruble with Lenin’s profile in his pocket and threw it into the grave. The ruble was worth so much back then! But I didn’t think about it, I was as if half asleep. Suddenly... an unknown old woman appeared nearby.

-What did you do? - she exclaimed angrily. -Who did you throw into my grave? I won't set foot here anymore!

And she walked away, and I looked, enchanted, at a piece of her decayed scarf fluttering in the wind. A happy boss met me at the department and said:

- The secretary's son has been found! He left for the sea, but forgot to warn his father! Close the case!

In the era of victorious materialism, it was not customary to talk about the otherworldly. I closed the case, although after the meeting with the old woman I had already imagined full picture actions.

The old woman's revenge.

Petval and Evgont heard a noise on the second floor of an abandoned house. We got up, and there the old woman opened the floor. Alcoholics scared her to death. Then they reported the body to the police, where her identity was established. The daughter of industrialist Stakheev had no relatives and was buried at state expense. The movers thought that the grandmother was looking for her father's treasure in an abandoned house. They opened the boards and found only a rotted book. Believing that the old woman had found the jewels and was buried with them, the poets dug up the grave. Here Stakheeva rose from the state grave and plunged them into the same state of darkness in which I myself was at the grave when I threw the ruble. Awakened to vengeance beyond the grave, Stakheeva began criminal activity. Starting with the loaders and ending with the rest, she plunged the victims into a somnambulistic state, brought them to an abandoned house, where she killed them. This is how the curse from the decayed book worked, and the dug up grave served as a gathering point for the descendants of all those involved in the events of the revolutionary period. Only Lenin’s profile on the coin helped me stop the chain of ridiculous deaths and reveal the secret of the dug up grave.

(mystical story from life)

Yuri Shatura. 57 years old.