THE INVESTIGATIONS OF WOODEN BURIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE CHUDOV MONASTERY`S NECROPOLIS OF THE MOSCOW KREMLIN

Author(s):  E.E. Vasileva, Institute of Archaeology of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, veda_lv@mail.ru

Issue:  Volume 45, №1

Rubric:  Topical issues of russian history

Annotation:  Over 2016-2017, the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences undertook archaeolog-ical investigations on the eastern sector of the Kremlin Hill, at the grounds of the former 'Corpus-14' building of the Moscow Kremlin (Russian Federation, Moscow). The paper summarizes preliminary re-sults of archaeological excavations conducted on the site where the Chudov monastery had stood before they were torn down in 1929–1930. The excavations revealed foundations of several Chudov monastery buildings dated to the 15th–17th centuries. These excavations unveiled burials of the monastery's ceme-tery – whose territory abutted the Archangel Michael Cathedral. The number of investigated burials is more than 100. The burials of the monastic cemetery include several burials in costly whitestone coffins, as well as tombs identifiable as belonging to members of the clergy. But most of the burials are made in wooden coffins. All burials were made according the strictest Christian rites and can be dated to the peri-od of late 14th to 17th century. However, the majority of these burials related to the period of the 15th - 16th centuries. The article gives a brief description of the burial rite, including wooden burial construc-tions, and provides a reconstruction of their forms.

Keywords:  Moscow Kremlin, Chudov monastery, monastery necropolis, wooden burial constructions.

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