Megaliths of the Vologda region

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

Fragment of the article "Megaliths of Indoman"

The territory between the rivers Kema and Indomanka is called Indoman. Having been there many times, it seemed to me that I knew almost everything about this area, but it turned out that not everything. Last fall, in the vicinity of the village of Bolshaya Chagotma (this is halfway between Ostrov and Nikonova), I was shown an interesting object, which is located near the road itself at the edge of the river cliff. These are two granite boulders, which in the 50-60s were bulldozed by ameliorators to this place from a nearby field.

They are quite large stones, about one and a half meters in length, about 80 cm in width and half a meter in height. Rounded stones of pink and gray granite.

The stones are carved with depressions of a regular quadrangular shape, rather deep, about 15 cm. With sides of 45X20 cm.

There are two of them on one "pink" stone, they are located on the flat edge of a round boulder on its side, looking at the river.

They are depressions with smooth, skillfully processed edges with a flat bottom, rounded corners, longitudinal edges slightly obliquely to the bottom (i.e., the bottom rectangle is significantly atthe same lengthwise, and slightly across than the edge rectangle),

Both grooves are identical and are located one next to the other at a distance of 10 cm exactly along the longitudinal axis.

Both depressions are surrounded by a straight line with a groove, about 3 cm deep and about 4 cm wide at a distance of 5 cm from the edge of the niche.

The same line, dividing both grooves, runs between them.

From the lateral edges, these two niches, at first glance resembling huge bread molds, have rock breaks obtained either by rough transportation by a bulldozer, or by physical impact on the weak points of the accumulating and freezing water in the niches.

The second "gray" boulder is cubic, but also with strongly "washed" edges, has a depression of the same size, in the middle of the upper edge, and therefore it is filled with water and overgrown with moss.

This niche bears only traces of processing, but has neither a given depth, nor a flat bottom, nor a groove-edging.

What's this? What is the purpose of these stones? What structure were they part of? What is striking about these megaliths is the fact of their stay in an area where there have never been any stone structures. There was once a chapel in Chagotma, but it was small and wooden. For many more miles around there was nothing that would require having similar stones in one way or another. Their purpose does not imply a utilitarian use, and, therefore, it is reasonable to assume their cult purpose. The level of stone processing is comparable to the best examples of the most ancient cultures of the world, and is not inferior to analogs of Ancient Egypt or Mesoamerica.

There are similar depressions in the stones on pagan sanctuaries in Karelia, but they seem to be of natural origin or only slightly finished.

Here we are dealing with technically complex processing of hard rock. This allows us to attribute the manufacture of these megaliths to the preglacial era. It seems to me possible to find out the origin of the rock itself. This will allow us to speak more definitely about whether these stones were made in our country, and we can be proud of the existence of a highly developed civilization on our territory, or they were brought here by a glacier already in a processed form from other places. My assumption regarding the purpose of these megaliths is as follows … Perhaps this is the base of the foot of a grandiose stone colossus. Now I mean “a pink stone with finished indentations. I suppose that the other not found stone had protrusions of a similar shape at the base, which fit into the recesses like a plug into an outlet, and the surrounding grooves were a kind of centering lines when one megalith was thrusting onto another. This explains, in particular, only one flat edge on the whole rounded stone. Or is it a part of the wall attached according to the same principle, in this case the line between the niches will be the junction of the upper two stones.

In any case, whatever it may be, this find should become the subject of a thorough study of all kinds of specialists, both archaeologists and geologists. Why is it necessary to passportize a cultural and historical object and make all possible measurements and examinations. Answers to all the questions posed by this object can shed light on the ancient history of our region.