Black grave
The Black Grave ( Ukrainian Чорна Могила / Chorna mohyla ) is a well-preserved burial mound of the Kievan Rus in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine . It was discovered in 1872 and first examined by Dmitri Yakovlevich Samokvassov . Similar burial mounds are very common on the territory of the Rus. Some grave fields have more than 1000 burial mounds.
The approximately 11 meter high hill has a diameter of 40 meters and was surrounded by a moat up to seven meters wide. Inside the cremation burials of two men and a woman were found. The accessories include two swords , a spear , a saddle with stirrups , fragments of chain mail , a helmet , arrowheads and a shield with brass fittings . An iron vessel with a sheep's bone and a bronze brazier was found next to the weapons . Two saddled horses were laid at the feet of the deceased . Among the things that can be assigned to women are ten sickles . The remains of melted jewelry , bronze vessels, dice , keys , locks, axes and chisels lay next to gold and silver bars in the corpse burn. A bronze statuette was found under the burials. The figure has attracted particular attention because there is nothing similar among the objects found on the territory of Rus from the 9th-11th centuries. Scandinavian depictions of the god Thor from the 10th-11th centuries are similar . Century. In the burial mound three Byzantine coins were found , which were minted between 945 and 959 AD by Constantine VII called Porphyrogenitus (905–959). The coins date the hill to the era of the Russian prince Svyatoslav I (942–972), to after 960 AD.
Local legends report that the local prince and founder of the city is buried in the burial mound. Chernigov is one of the oldest cities in the Kievan Rus. In the 9th century it became the capital of the East Slavic tribe of the Severyan . The city, which was the capital of the Principality of Chernigov from the 11th to the 13th centuries, is first mentioned in AD 907.
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Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 2.4 ″ N , 31 ° 17 ′ 39.7 ″ E