Stones of pre-split Russia. Part 2

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

In the first part, we looked at the most impressive examples of the tombstones of the Luzhetsky monastery and at the details of the elements of their design. Impressive precisely for their aesthetics and preservation of inscriptions and drawings. All of them can be dated to the middle of the 17th century and practically again went into the foundation of the temple of St. Ferapont of Mozhaisk.

However, there are also older samples in the assortment of slabs. They are not so aesthetic, but no less interesting.

Let's look at this one, for example.

Traces of the rosette and border are barely visible. The inscription is almost scratched, although it is quite neat and at the same time looks newer than the slab itself.

Here's another. Here the handwriting is even less accurate.

And then the impression that they learned to write on the old slab:) The letters strongly resemble the writing of Novgorod's birch bark letters. Or maybe they are from the same time? And birch bark letters, as we remember, are from the 9-15th century. Maybe - we will not guess.

Here's another example from the same series.

However, it can be marriage and drafts or training samples:)

One thing is clear.

Old slabs were used and the quality of the ornament itself is clearly not student-centered.

There are intermediate samples, for example this one. There is a hint of quality here, but it is incomparable to the plates of the 17th century.

And again we see that the patterned drawing is of higher quality and clearly older.

Here you can see it better.

The next sample is unique for the collection of slabs of the Luzhetsky Monastery.

The slab, described in detail by Fomenko and Nosovsky in the book "The Secret of Russian History". Paired burial of two babies - Andrey and Peter Klimentyev. The babies died in 1641 and 1643.

The tombstone is not canonical and we do not see a fork-shaped cross here, but it is made very high quality, and the edging pattern and letters were clearly made at the same time and by the same master.

Judging by the state, this slab was in the air for a long time before it lay in the foundation.

However, I am not sure that the stove was there at all. It is exhibited in the necropolis on the other side of the cathedral and it is possible that it was a part of it.

What can we tell by looking at these pictures?

1. Even before the Schism, there was a practice of gravestones without a pitchfork cross, as evidenced by the Klementyevs' plate (40s of the 17th century). At the same time, the border ornament is present invariably.

2. The practice of writing on slabs is a later tradition. Those. the content of the inscription (Christian epitaph) should not be identified with the drawing - these are different traditions.

3. Initially unwritten but patterned plates could be produced in a separate production and possibly much earlier than they were used in business.

4. The oldest slabs in terms of wear and probably in the time of manufacture had a simpler toothed ornament of the edging, as opposed to the later one - a twisted three-cord wave.

Unobvious but probable

Now a few examples from the realm of hypotheses and riddles.

Here, for example, is a truly Chudinov sample.:)

A fragment of a slab with a very high-quality ligature and along the edge we see half-erased small letters.

Here is a snapshot of the other half of this stone.

The letters are less noticeable, but the fact that the inscription is continued here is seen quite well.

What are the hypotheses?

It might make sense to take a closer look and photograph the edges of other slabs.

Are these inscriptions random?

When are they made?

What could have been written there?

In general, there are solid questions.

Interestingly, here we see clear, albeit subtle, ruler guides for writing.

It is worth noting that most of the inscribed samples do not have such rulers. This does not mean at all that the masters worked in flight without guides, rather, they simply wore off from time to time, as they were initially made as invisible as possible.

A note about guides is important for the next sample.

The first thought that arises is what clear and even guides the master made here.

But the question arises - why?

These are almost cuts, and the rulers (if they are) are much thicker than the letters themselves or comparable to them.

It is doubtful if these are guides.

What then?

Let's see the details and play with the snapshot using V. A. Chudinov.

Let's manifest what can be shown.

Funny features and cuts:)

Of course, this can be attributed to marriage or student experiments, but you can look at it differently.

The nature of the inscription clearly reminds us of something.

We will twist it in any way to understand its true position on the stove.

Variant 3 is especially interesting, especially since, according to the position of the remnants of the ornament on the slab (and it is badly damaged), it is precisely this arrangement of the inscription that is closest to the correct one.

See what it looks like?

This version of ligature writing "below the line" is typical for … Veles Book and Devanagari - the writing form of ancient Sanskrit.

I also attribute this recording technique to the Khari karuna - one of the four types of ancient writing of the Aryans.

That's it:)

I do not draw any conclusions

See for yourself!

This is only a guess, but it is obvious that the artifact requires serious study.

Perhaps a hundred kilometers from Moscow in the open air lies a sample of the oldest written language, the existence of which is so hard to prove by the supporters of its existence.

see also Stones of pre-split Russia. Part 1