Moscow Kremlin: First Excavation Results 2019

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Excavations in the Great Kremlin Square were started by the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in May 2019 with the aim of studying cultural strata on the high root terrace of the Moskva River, in the immediate vicinity of Cathedral Square.

This is one of the few plots free from building in the center of the Kremlin, where the medieval cultural layer and the remains of ancient structures, judging by the archival materials and data from preliminary archaeological surveys, have not been disturbed and are available for study over a wide area. The excavations are promising for clarifying the general history of the development of this part of Borovitsky Hill. For the first time, excavations in the Moscow Kremlin are being conducted as a purely research project, not related to ensuring the safety of the archaeological heritage during restoration or construction work. Archaeological research is carried out in an open mode, so that visitors to the Kremlin can see discovered antiquities and observe the working process, standing on the observation deck.

The excavation was laid next to the Archangel Cathedral, the first building of which was erected in 1333 on the site where a settlement existed in the early Iron Age. There is every reason to expect that this territory was developed in the very early period of the history of Moscow, in the middle of the 12th century. Here, next to the Archangel Cathedral, the historiographic tradition places the courtyard of the Serpukhov prince Vladimir Andreevich the Brave, a cousin of Dmitry Donskoy. Probably, and later there were the possessions of the princely families. Particular interest in this site is due to the placement here in the XVI-XVII centuries. central government bodies of the Russian state - Orders.

The beginning of the formation of the administrative center in this part of the Kremlin, judging by the written sources, was laid by the construction of "Polata ambassadorial, which is against St. Ivan under the bells" by order of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich (IV) in 1565. During the reign of Fedor Ivanovich, in 1591, Two-story stone chambers were attached to the ambassadorial order, in which there were orders in charge of different areas of management (including Razryadny, Pomestny, Siberian, Chelobitenny, Pushkarsky, Razboyny). Expansion of the order system in the 17th century. required new premises and the construction of new annexes to the southern wing of the Prikaz Chambers. Images of the old building of the Prikaz Chambers can be found on the Moscow Kremlin plan of the 1600s. and in the drawings from the album of the Austrian diplomat A. Meyerberg in the 1660s. Russian plans of the building from the 1660s – 1670s, preserved in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, give an idea of its size and the placement of individual orders. The building was a two-storey U-shaped building with a gate facing east, the order services were located on the second floor, the lower floor was used for household needs. The dilapidated building of 1591 in 1678 was replaced by a new imposing building, built on the edge of the Kremlin hill, with a gate overlooking the Kremlin slope to the fortress wall and two churches located near the gate on the upper tier. In the XVIII century. In the building of Orders, some of the Colleges and Chanceries were located - new central government bodies that changed Orders during the reforms of Peter I.. AND. Bazhenov. Since then, this part of the Kremlin has not been built up and actually turned into a large wasteland with the remains of destroyed buildings, the appearance of which is known to us from engravings and paintings of the late 18th - 19th centuries. Later, the site was leveled and occupied by a military parade ground, partially paved with bricks. The remains of this paving were found in the pits laid in the Grand Kremlin Square in 2018.

The excavation area is about 200 sq.m under a layer of construction debris at a depth of 60–100 cm, the remains of a monumental brick building with a plinth and foundation made of white stone were revealed. It is premature to accurately reconstruct the planning structure and design features of the uncovered part of the building at this stage of excavation, but it is obvious that these are orders. A layer of construction debris covering the 17th century masonry. and deposited next to them, contains architectural details, fragments of stove tiles, individual household items of the late 17th - 18th centuries. and numerous coins from this time.

Archaeological materials collected during the first month of excavations (about 450 items) characterize the life of the Kremlin at the end of the 17th - 19th centuries. and includes three sets of finds.

The earliest of them are construction materials that fell into the ground after the destruction of the Prikaz building in 1770: white-stone carved parts, figured bricks, fragments of polychrome stove tiles, which probably adorned the stoves inside the Prikaz / Collegium buildings. Genuine finds from the location of the Prikaz building, about the interior of which there is only the most fragmentary information, make it possible to get an idea of the appearance of this building and its interior decoration.

The second group of artifacts is items related to the period of the Collegiums functioning during the 18th century. These are mainly copper coins of low denomination (dengi, polushki, kopecks), single household items (knives), against which a perfectly preserved bone chess piece stands out - a horse, decorated with painting with paint and inlays with mother-of-pearl.

The most unexpected and numerous group of finds is weapons and military equipment and household items that may be associated with the presence of Napoleon's troops on the territory of the Kremlin.

Among these things are two sabers of the Hungarian model, the mouth of the scabbard of a dragoon broadsword, a bayonet (most likely from a gun of the 1777 model), rifle ramrods and fragments of guns, lead bullets, scraps of epaulettes, belt buckles, horse shoes, a bell from a horse harness. Household items include a carved bone comb, parts of copper candelabra, bronze and brass onlays that adorned household utensils. There are also coins, including foreign ones - French, German, Swedish.

Uniform buttons (including that of a General Staff officer) and a badge depicting a Napoleonic imperial eagle with a lightning beam in its paws make it possible to convincingly attribute this complex as traces of military events in the fall of 1812, when the Kremlin, in the safest and most status part of Moscow, was placed Napoleonic "old guard".

It is known that cathedrals and palaces were plundered, and some of the Kremlin buildings were blown up when the Great Army left Moscow. Obviously, leaving Moscow on October 7, 1812, the French troops left some of their weapons and ammunition, which later, when clearing the territory of the Kremlin, was thrown into one of the wastelands. The find in the Great Kremlin Square is a unique archaeological evidence of the presence of the Napoleonic army in the Kremlin, important for characterizing the general state of the troops and the state of the Kremlin after the fires and destruction of 1812.