In 2021, on the territory of the second mound group of the Kytaiv Cemetery on the outskirts of Kyiv the authors discovered the inhumation burial in a coffin placed in a wooden funeral chamber. Burials with wooden structures made directly in the grave pit have been widespread in Northern and Eastern Europe of the Viking Age and are well known in the literature as chamber burials. Some modern researchers distinguish among the early medieval burials the category of so-called «quasi-chambers» which are similar to original chamber tombs but differ from them in certain important structural and ritual elements. In our opinion, the burial complexes, combining wooden walls and «movable» coffin, as the one under discussion, should also be included into this category. They differ from original chambers by general semantics of the rite and usually are later chronologically. In the 1910s and 1970s, similar assemblages were excavated in the first barrow group of the cemetery.
According to the grave goods the newly discovered burial can be considered ordinary, and the mound over the burial chamber is one of the smallest in the mound group. Thus, at least in the territory of the Kyiv area the chambers with coffins at the late 10th and early 11th centuries became a mass phenomenon, losing the elitist character inherent in original chamber tombs. Compared to the latter the design of burial structures is also showing clear signs of simplification.
The obtained results prove the expediency of classification the chambers with coffins as one of the types of Old Rus quasi-chamber burials. Further theoretical developments in this direction and new excavations should complement the reconstructed vision of religious, social and political progress of the population of Old Rus at the stage of statehood formation.
The funeral in boats was widespread in Northern Europe from Iceland to the Volga region during the Viking Age. But in the works devoted to this rite the materials of Southern Rus are practically ignored though being studied worst.
The remains of small boats which can be recorded very rarely are survived in two or three burials. Ship rivets were found in six burials. Despite the insufficient number of these mounts in two cases we can also talk about the use of full-fledged funeral boats. In the other four assemblages the rivets placed on the grave acted as a symbol of the ship which replaced the whole. Available materials allow us to attribute the existence of the rite in Southern Rus to the second half of the tenth century. It probably ceased to be practiced after the introduction of Christianity in 988.
In the territory of Southern Rus the burial in boats can be considered as an ethnic indicator of the presence of Scandinavians, probably — natives of Central Sweden. A relatively small number of such burials reflects a change in the usual way of life of the Normans in the new conditions.
Although in Scandinavia since the ninth century the significant simplification and «democratization» of the rite could be observed, in Eastern Europe it remains to be elitist. In all burials of Southern Rus the composition of the grave goods indicates the burial of men. Most of them contained weapons or whole sets of them, often the remains of a horse and rider’s equipment, attributes of trade — weights, fragments of scales, coins. At the same time these materials demonstrate a clear social hierarchy of the dead — from ordinary soldiers to the princely class. Chorna Mohyla barrow in Chernihiv was the largest and richest Old Rus mound where a local prince was probably buried. The ship rivets were also found among the materials from this barrow 120 years later excavation.
МЕТАЛУРГІЙНИЙ ОСЕРЕДОК ХІ -ХІІ СТ. НА ТЕРИТОРІЇ ВИШГОРОДСЬКОГО ІСТОРИКО-КУЛЬТУРНОГО ЗАПОВІДНИКА (за матеріалами розкопок 1989 р.) У статті вводяться до наукового обігу матеріали виробничих комплексів ХІ -ХІІ ст., розкопаних 1989 р. у західній част ині вишгородського по са ду (урочище Нижні Дорогожичі). Їх реінтерпретація дозволяє архео логічно простежити майже всі основні етапи виробництва та обробки заліза. Поточнються датування вказаних об'єктів та забудови даної частини посаду загалом. Ключові слова: Давня Русь, Вишгород, металургія, ковальство.
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