BOATS AND THEIR SYMBOLS IN THE FUNERAL RITE ON THE LANDS OF SOUTHERN RUS

Abstract

The funeral in boats was widespread in Northern Europe from Iceland to the Volga region during the Viking Age. But in the works devoted to this rite the materials of Southern Rus are practically ignored though being studied worst. The remains of small boats which can be recorded very rarely are survived in two or three burials. Ship rivets were found in six burials. Despite the insufficient number of these mounts in two cases we can also talk about the use of full-fledged funeral boats. In the other four assemblages the rivets placed on the grave acted as a symbol of the ship which replaced the whole. Available materials allow us to attribute the existence of the rite in Southern Rus to the second half of the tenth century. It probably ceased to be practiced after the introduction of Christianity in 988. In the territory of Southern Rus the burial in boats can be considered as an ethnic indicator of the presence of Scandinavians, probably — natives of Central Sweden. A relatively small number of such burials reflects a change in the usual way of life of the Normans in the new conditions. Although in Scandinavia since the ninth century the significant simplification and «democratization» of the rite could be observed, in Eastern Europe it remains to be elitist. In all burials of Southern Rus the composition of the grave goods indicates the burial of men. Most of them contained weapons or whole sets of them, often the remains of a horse and rider’s equipment, attributes of trade — weights, fragments of scales, coins. At the same time these materials demonstrate a clear social hierarchy of the dead — from ordinary soldiers to the princely class. Chorna Mohyla barrow in Chernihiv was the largest and richest Old Rus mound where a local prince was probably buried. The ship rivets were also found among the materials from this barrow 120 years later excavation.