Stone labyrinth “Babylon. The stone labyrinth of Babylon. The historical monument the stone labyrinth is located in the village

277 km from the city of Murmansk, not far from the small town of Kandalaksha, there is a maze whose age is close to four thousand years. Most scholars suggest that such an amazing mystery in its form more closely resembles a trap, which was often used by ancient people in the process of fishing or as performing various rituals, with the help of which luck should go to their side.

The most common name for the Kandalaksha labyrinth is the stone labyrinth “Babylon”, which is a large system of intricate moves laid out exclusively of stone - it was in these places that ancient people performed their magic rites. There is an opinion that the rituals are in no way connected with the labyrinths, but only served as help during the hunt. There have been cases when the dead were buried in the passages of the maze. It is known that many primitive peoples had this kind of labyrinths. All the labyrinths present contain intricate and intricate passages that are specially laid out of stone in the form of a spiral, which is especially noticeable in several places located on the Kola Peninsula, next to the Umba and Pona rivers.

Such a noticeable popularity of the presence of labyrinths gives rise to an actually fantastic hypothesis about the purpose of these buildings. There are research scientists who believe that there was a close connection between the faith of the ancient peoples in the afterlife, other worlds and this kind of stone structures. There is an opinion that the villages near which the labyrinths were located, apparently, maintained communication with each other, even despite great distances; At the same time, powerful structures were used not only as an antenna, but also as a kind of receiver.

It is worth noting that none of the presented theories to date has found exact evidence, because in the soil under the spirals no traces of burials were found, and as for confirming the version about the presence of doors to other worlds and the way that various signals can be transmitted over long distances - then it is not at all possible.

All tribes living near the labyrinth, whose name sounds like Pomors, called spirals made of medium-sized stones “Babylon”. In this case, it is worth considering: why did this ancient people choose this name? This question can be answered in different ways: according to the first version, it is assumed that the word “Babylon” in translation into Russian sounds like “wavy, curvy,” and this option is considered the most obvious, but still it is not the only one and confirmed. There is another version, according to which it is believed that the word “Babylon” is a slightly distorted word “Avalon”, which in Celtic language means “a place where fairies live”. If you translate the word "Avalon" into Russian, it means "apple", which is somewhat comparable with the inherent form of "Babylon", resembling an apple cut along it.

There is a legend that says that only the elite can get to the labyrinth, and indeed it is not very easy to get to the labyrinth, because it is located not so close to the city of Murmansk, especially since people who are not familiar with this area can find the right place it will be very difficult, because many simply do not notice it.

To date, it has been precisely ascertained that in the territory of modern Kandalaksha region there were two religious cults, one of which was called the cult of the higher gods, and the other was the cult of the Sades - sacred stones in which sacred and respected spirits live. It is known that Seyd always demanded respect for himself, and for his respectful attitude he always awarded a rich catch on the hunt.

“Babylon” in Kandalaksha hills is a unique, though not uncommon phenomenon, because the largest concentration of labyrinths is located on the famous Volosyanaya hills, three km from the main road Kandalaksha. All the secrets of the mysterious “Babylon” have not yet been clarified, which means that new excavations will follow.

There are five of them on the Kandalaksha and Tersky shores of the White Sea: Kandalaksha, located on Cape Pitkulsky Navolok at an absolute height of 3.4 m above sea level, Umbinskie (large and small) - on Cape Anninsky Cross, 90 m west of Tony Drummer on 6.6 m above sea level and two Ponoisky labyrinths.

The study of these objects on the coasts of the White and Barents Seas, as well as on the territory of Sweden, Norway, Finland, showed that the Trojan cities, with very few exceptions, were built in close proximity to the ancient coastline (the highest tide line) and never flooded the sea.

Some labyrinths are located next to other archaeological sites (primitive sites, prehistoric graves), where quartz scrapers and brackets, arrowheads from slate, fragments of asbestos ceramics, rare fragments of vessels decorated with ornaments were found. Findings of these artifacts were associated with the so-called "culture of the Arctic Neolithic", which refers to the time interval V-I thousand years BC. (Gurina, 1953), which allowed archaeologists to compare the age of the Kola labyrinths with the Neolithic and estimate it at 3-4 thousand years.

There is no definite answer to the question regarding the purpose of the stone labyrinths of the Kola region, but it is known that they are all connected to the sea and are confined to places rich in fish. It is reliably known that the Kola labyrinths never flooded the sea. Based on this, it is possible to determine the maximum age of these archaeological sites by relating them to the position of the sea level at one time or another. A similar approach to assessing the age of the Scandinavian labyrinths allowed foreign researchers (Kern, 2007) to significantly adjust it towards rejuvenation.

The work carried out at the Geological Institute of the Kola Science Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the study of the late postglacial movement of the coastal line of the sea makes it possible to determine its altitude on the coast at one time or another, i.e., using geological methods to establish the age of the coastline at the height at which the maze is located, which is the maximum possible age of the stone labyrinth (Kolka, Korsakova, 2010). For this, we used data from studies of the movement of the coastal line of the sea in the Late Holocene at the top of Kandalaksha Bay and in the area of \u200b\u200bthe village. Lesozavodsky on its southern shore. According to these data, the age of the Kandalaksha labyrinth can not be more than 918-1000 calendar years, and during the “Arctic Neolithic” the surface with an absolute mark of 3.4 m, on which the Kandalakshi labyrinth is located, should have been at a depth of about 11 m below modern sea level.

There are two ways to get to the maze:

By car - exit from the observation deck (route marked in red)

On foot - through the microdistrict "Japan" due to which, you can see what Kandalaksha was several centuries ago. And then along the rocky coast with beautiful views of the White Sea (route marked in yellow). ()

Prepared from the materials of Kolka V.V., Korsakova O.P., Nikolaeva S.B.

Labyrinth of Babylon (Kandalaksha Labyrinth)

On the shore of Maly Pitkul Bay, 4 km from the city of Kandalaksha there is a stone labyrinth “Babylon”, whose age reaches 4000 years. Administratively owned by the Kandalaksha district of the Murmansk region.

Not everyone can find the entrance to the maze - a traveler unfamiliar with the terrain will simply not notice him.

It was believed that the Kandalaksha labyrinth was created by primitive man and is a diagram of a trap used for fishing. Scientists believe that religious ceremonies were held here - ancient people hoped in this way to secure success in the industry.

In all the "Babylon", indeed, intricate, intricate moves, laid out in a special way of stone. Spirals can be found in several places on the Kola Peninsula. Their mystery has not yet been solved, there are hypotheses about the use of structures in fishing witchcraft, which controlled the winds, in ritual dances. There is also a hypothesis about the location of labyrinths in burial places, so that the souls of the dead get lost, wound in a spiral, and do not disturb the living.

The maze is lined with medium-sized stones on the shores of Kandalaksha Bay. Pomors called him “Babylon”, i.e. sinuous, wavy. But opinions about the origin of such a name differ. According to one version, the Pomeranian name for the labyrinth “Babylon” is a slightly distorted Celtic term. The island (city) of Avalon, where fairies live, the island of the blessed, which is opened only to the elite, is known in Celtic mythology. The name of the magic city itself is derived from the Celtic word apple (abal, atal), which ideally matches the shape of the maze, very similar to the schematic section of the apple. If we add that in Celtic legends about the “island of the blessed” narrates about wonderful apples that bestow immortality, then the name, shape and legend of the ancient structure are closely related. Then it turns out that the maze from ancient times was considered a pointer to the proximity of other spaces and dimensions.

What were the labyrinths for? This question is still considered open. There are a great many versions - from completely terrestrial to the most fantastic. Many researchers believed that these are ordinary altars used by ancient people in the performance of some rites. Others argued that the labyrinths are nothing but the doors to some other worlds. Of undoubted interest is the assumption that the labyrinth is a transceiver antenna scheme with which the ancient inhabitants of these places could communicate with each other at great distances.

One thing is certain: stone spirals are literally empty. Many researchers tried to find some evidence of their versions under them, but in vain: either an untouched pebble or a rock appeared there.

In the Kandalaksha area in the summer of 2011 the Kandalaksha coast tourist local history trail was equipped - the three-kilometer route was equipped with signs and signs with descriptions of attractions, several tourist camps were made. Among other objects of the trail, this maze is also located on it.

Archaeological antiquities of the Voronezh land

Prehistory

In 1957, the archaeological expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the direction of P.D. Liberova discovered the Mostishenskoe settlement for science. Judging by the small excavations at this archaeological site, it was created in the early Iron Age, in Scythian time. Then, due to the lack of finds for dating the monument, the life time of the fortified village was determined incorrectly. At a later time, when the settlement was excavated with a wide area, the time was determined more precisely - the end of V or the turn of VI - and until the end of IV century. BC.

Labyrinths of Europe and Mostishchensky labyrinth

Stone labyrinths and other stone constructions are well known in Northern Europe, in England, in the Mediterranean, Sweden, Denmark, in the north of our country in Karelia and by the White Sea, in the North Caucasus. They are complex structures of stone of different layouts and designs in the form of concentric circles, ellipses.

There is an opinion about the builders of these structures - the tribes that lived in the Pyrenees. For some reason, they advanced along the Atlantic coast to the shores of the North Sea. Their traces are marked on the territory of modern Germany - on the Rhine and the Elbe. And in the British Isles, about 900 stone structures were created.

Among the experts who studied and study the labyrinths, over time there was an idea of \u200b\u200bthe religious purpose of these objects. As it has now become clear, the labyrinths were also ancient observatories from which observations were made of celestial bodies, calculations of solar and lunar eclipses. The time of their creation - Neolithic - Eneolithic. The construction of huge stone structures lasted almost 3000 years, from the 5th to the 2nd millennium BC. But the mysteries of stone giants are much more than the solution: who built them, how, why?

On Mostishensky settlement, the labyrinth was in the form of an oval, built of chalk stones. The stones are laid out on a turf, out of the blue. The structure itself consists of six ring masonry. They are heavily destroyed, but in general, you can set the approximate size. If the count is conducted from the external borders of the masonry, then its dimensions will be as follows: 26 x 38m. The ellipse is elongated along the line northeast - southwest. Later it was largely destroyed when the tribes of the Scythian time began to use the location of the labyrinth and its stones for their construction needs. Nevertheless, the main forms of the stone labyrinth are captured.

There were hopes that during the excavation, burials of priests who served the maze would be discovered. And when several uninventory burials stretched out on his back were found on its square, it seemed that the wait was not in vain. Alas ... In the next burial, an iron short sword of Scythian time was discovered, and it became clear that these burials belong to the inhabitants of Scythian time.

A.T. Sinyuk draws attention to the fact that fragments of ceramics of the Abashevskaya and catacomb cultures were found at the place of the labyrinth. At the same time, Abashev ceramics, in his opinion, is early, as well as catacomb. Does it testify to him? If the researcher’s assumption is correct, then it is possible to assume the joint use by the tribes of the Bronze Age of the stone labyrinth. According to A.T. Sinyuka, the construction lasted for one or two centuries during the turn of III - beginning of II millennium BC

But this is all that can be said about the labyrinth itself. There were attempts to prove its astronomical role with the help of finds in the ancient settlement of several granite stones. In accordance with which, calculations were made on the points of sunrise at the days of the winter and summer solstices, autumn and spring equinoxes. But the strong destruction of the monument, the possibility of the origin of granite stones from the Scythian time, the randomness of their location exactly where they are found in our time, so far reduces these attempts to zero. In addition, there are other granite stones on the monument, in other places in which they are not involved in the calculation.

The uniqueness of the Mostishchensky labyrinth led to a cautious attitude towards him. Until now, scientists prefer to remain silent about this discovery, probably doubting its reality. Such is the fate of everything new, for the approval of which time is needed or ... a second similar labyrinth ...

Millennium Roads

In the study of the ideology and social structure of ancient Don tribes, unexpected results in recent years have brought excavations at the Mostishche farm in the Ostrogozhsky district.

If you climb the middle of the three high Cretaceous capes, hanging in a semicircle over the farm, and turn to face it, you will see a panorama that is rare in its geographical location - a valley formed by the confluence of the floodplains of three rivers at once: Potudani, Damsel and Don. From here, in clear weather, you can observe open spaces to the north for tens of kilometers! Almost as wide a view of the area in the western and eastern sides. The place is amazing, allowing you to control a large area with beautiful pastures, hunting and fishing lands, as well as waterways in all directions.

We could not appreciate such a place and our distant ancestors. A vivid proof of this is the remains of the defensive fortifications of Scythian time on two capes. But are there any signs of human habitation in the more ancient period? For this purpose, excavations were undertaken on the central (Bridge 1) and north-western (Site 2) capes. And our expectations were met. On the first of the monuments, along with the finds that were usual for Scythian time, fragments of vessels of the Ivanobugor type and catacomb culture (as we already know, to some extent synchronous) began to come across. Cretaceous stones, which turned out to be saturated with the cultural layer, immediately attracted attention. The fact is that in the settlements of neither the Bronze Age nor the Scythian time in the Middle Don, construction stone has not yet been encountered.

Excavations became more careful: each stone had to be kept in place. And finally, the upper platform of the cape is freed from soil deposits, and the ruins of masonry stood out in relief against the backdrop of the mainland! Masonry preserved only fragmentary, they were repeatedly destroyed in the Bronze Age and in the early Iron Age.

Nevertheless, an irrefutable argument in favor of the ancient age of the construction was obtained. Excavations at a neighboring cape also found the remains of masonry (though not ring ones, like on Mostishche 1, but rectangular). They were accompanied by fragments of the Ivanobugor and catacomb vessels, and: not a single cuttings of a later time!
Now we have facts at our disposal to link the remains of the stone structures of both monuments with the Ivanobugorsk population (the turn of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC and a little later).

Since the excavations were completed recently and there is a lot of work ahead to comprehend their results, we will only outline the construction of the settlement Mastischa 1 (Fig. 40). It includes a circular central platform of stone pavement and six concentric ellipse rings surrounding it, between which, in some cases, jumpers are fixed. Both the rings and the lintels consist of stones laid out without a special fit and without any binding solution. Their maximum height in ancient times did not exceed half a meter; the larger diameter of the outer ring along the west-east line reaches 40 meters. Once again we make a reservation that only the ruins of the structure, which in its original form was architecturally more complex and systemic, have reached us. But even what has survived to our days leaves no doubt: these are the remains<мегалитического> religious buildings. It can be called a sanctuary, a maze.

Megalithic structures are widely known in the scientific world - grandiose monuments of the past scattered along the European coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Megaliths are large cut stones weighing several tons. They were often placed on the end or dug in the form of multi-meter posts, and fastened on top by overlaying the same blocks. Megaliths were used in the construction of structures of various shapes, including ring-shaped in the form of ellipses. For the same purposes, stones were used and much smaller sizes. The age of the buildings is from four thousand years or more, and some were erected long before the appearance of the pyramids of Egypt!

Special attention of scientists has been attracted for many years by the stone rings of Stonehenge in southern England. Many books have been written about this monument, but the study of its construction and the meaning hidden about it continues to this day. Scientists were able to establish that most of these monuments were used as tombs, but they also have symbolic significance: all kinds of religious rituals were held here, as well as gatherings of widely scattered communities from adjacent areas. Finally, Stonehenge turned out to be not only a sanctuary for ritual ceremonies, but also a huge astronomical observatory, which, perhaps, allowed to predict solar and lunar eclipses!

Readers have the right to ask, what is common between Stonehenge and the very modest-sized Mostishchensky clutches?

Indeed, an external comparison is not in favor of the latter. But if you do not take into account the size and architectural techniques, and pay attention to the semantic purpose of the Don structure, will we not see similar signs? After all, the Mostishchi maze is also not an industrial building or a dwelling. Only single specimens of vessels and bone remains were found in the maze, and there were no traces of the production of tools and household utensils, nor the remains of dwellings, nor household pits. This is on the excavated area of \u200b\u200bthe monument of more than 2000 square meters! The monument, strictly speaking, was not the place of residence of ancient people, that is, a settlement. Findings of vessels, as well as bones of animals and fish are quite consistent with places of ritual ceremonies. Buildings in the form of stone labyrinths are known both on the White Sea coast of our country, and in a number of northern European countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, etc.). Some of them, differing from the Don one in smaller sizes, methods of laying stones and individual structural details, are similar to the presence of concentric circles. But, as it was established, the northern labyrinths reflect the same ideas that prompted the construction of megalithic rings! Now few people doubt the cult purpose of the labyrinths: they certainly were shrines. True, no traces of the tomb were found in the complex of Mastnshchensky constructions, but it can be somewhere nearby and for it they provided for the usual ritual for the Don Eneolithic to place the remains in the ground.

So, for the first time for such an early time (the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC) in the middle zone of Russia a sanctuary was opened in the form of a stone labyrinth, reflecting the common European ideology of the period of construction of megalithic structures. What is the specific content of this ideology, what are its constituent links - a question that, apparently, will be resolved only in the future.

The Don maze could also be the center of a wide area where important social events were held. Consequently, the ideas laid down in the construction of such structures were distributed much wider than previously thought. In addition, the question is legitimate: were all the shrines made of stone? It could be that, given the scarcity of its reserves (which is the difference between our land), shrines were built from turf or bulk earth, and today it is almost impossible to find them.

Finally, could the Don labyrinth combine the functions of a sanctuary and a device for observing celestial bodies? We do not exclude a positive answer, but more research is needed. Our optimism is based on the fact that the time has come to resolutely reject the prevailing historical prejudices and overestimate their creative potential in favor of ancient societies. This fully applies to the Bronze Age.

Sources

Berezutsky V.D., Zolotarev P.M. - Archaeological antiquities of the Voronezh land - M.: Bratishka, 2007.
Vinnikov A.Z., Sinyuk A.T. - Roads of thousands of years: Archaeologists about the ancient history of the Voronezh region. - 2nd ed., Rev. and add. - Voronezh: Publishing house of the Voronezh State University, 2003.