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A conservationist in Ukraine discovered an ancient cave complex with Viking carvings behind an abandoned house. Dmytro Perov, a conservationist at the Center for Urban Development in Kyiv, grew up hearing stories about an ancient cave somewhere on the estate of his great-great-grandmother and her family, he told Life Pravda in a Nov. 7 interview. Perov knew the location of the three-story manor — now a dilapidated, abandoned house — in central Kyiv. Perov decided to investigate, he told Live Pravda. He went with a few friends to try and find the cave. After searching for half a day, the...

"Echoes of History: Ragnarök" is a historical podcast inspired by the video game "Assassin’s Creed Valhalla : Dawn of Ragnarök." It’s the second season of Ubisoft’s popular podcast “Echoes of History."The year 1066 has become indelibly linked to William the Conqueror, the Norman King who by his victory at Hastings seized the English throne. But for every event that becomes gilded in history as a turning point, there were thousands of others overshadowed, and one such event happened only weeks before that fateful battle and involved the same English King, but instead of securing everlasting glory, it ended the career...

“Ancient Russian Centaur” Found In Novgorod 17.08.2006 During archeological diggings in Velikiy Novgorod Russian scientists have found a figure they named "ancient Russian centaur". The figure was found in layers dated back to the end of XI century in the Troitsky dig near the Novgorod Kremlin. Unknown craftsman had cut a wooden bearded man with a hat on his head and a bow behind his back. The figure has hooves instead of feet and is covered with a golden coating. It is broken in that very part, where human body transforms to the body of a horse. The other part...

Ancient Russia (Rus) occupied the territory of Eastern Europe and lay on trade routes running from Christian West to Muslim East and back. So far treasures have been found on the ways where caravans moved along. Western travelers thought Medieval Rus as a country of vast woods and plains with settlements and villages widely separated, though Vikings took Rus differently: the most popular Volga Trade Route connecting countries lying to the North and the South was called the Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Old Scandinavian sagas mention 12 big towns of Ancient Rus, among them: Novgorod, Kiev,...

Russian archaeologists find 15th century griffin jug piece Irish Sun Wednesday 19th March, 2008 Moscow, March 19 (RIA Novosti) Archaeologists near the city of Veliky Novgorod in northwest Russia have discovered part of a centuries-old ceramic jug decorated with a mysterious griffin symbol. 'On the fragment of ceramic, most likely part of a broken jug, we saw an image of an animal with open jaws and wings, like a griffin,' the head of the archaeology team, Oleg Oleynikov, said. The griffin, portrayed as a gigantic bird with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion, first appeared...

VELIKY NOVGOROD, May 26 (RIA Novosti) - Archaeologists have made a rare find of a number of medieval baby bottles at excavations in Veliky Novgorod, an ancient city in northwest Russia, a scientist said on Monday. "Similar bottles are rarely found in excavations, and here we have already discovered... three of them," Medieval Slavs made feeding bottles by attaching leather bags to the wider part of cow horns. A baby drank the milk from a hole made on the tip of a horn. Novgorod is one of the most ancient cities of the Eastern Slavs. It was first mentioned in...

Archeologists Discover Unique Things in Veliki Novgorod 27.05.2008 A group of archeologists carrying out diggings in Veliki Novgorod have found several ancient feeding bottles for babies. The finds were discovered at the digging site in Mikhailova Street. Here the archeologists found wooden feeding devices made of cow horns. The Slavs used to attach leather sacks with milk to the broad ends of hollow horns and their babies would suck the milk through holes in the narrow part of horns. It is interesting to note that not far from the archeological excavation site there is a working municipal kindergarten. Almost every...

Archaeologists in northwest Russia have discovered a chess piece dating back to the late 14th century, a spokesman for local archaeologists said on Friday. "The king, around several centimeters tall, is made of solid wood, possibly of juniper," the spokesman said. The excavations are being carried out at the site of the Palace of Facets, in the Novgorod Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod. The palace is believed to be the oldest in Russia. According to the city chronicles, chess as a competitive game emerged in Veliky Novgorod, the foremost historic city in northwest Russia, in the 13th century, but was banned...

Novgorod or Veliky Novgorod, is one of the major historical cities of Russia, and it started out as a trading station for the Varangians who traveled from the Baltic region to Constantinople by (possibly) late 10th century AD. But as it turns out, this historically significant settlement of northern Russia is also home to around thousand personal ‘tomes’ that are inscribed on bark of birch trees and are almost preserved in perfect condition. In fact, historians hypothesize that there are 20,000 similar specimens still waiting to be salvaged from the conducive anaerobic clay soil layers of the city environs. And...

Archaeologists have found the figure of a goddess that dates back to the early Hittite period as well as a Viking amber necklace during an ongoing excavation in the ancient city of Bathonea by Lake Kucukcekmece in Istanbul. An archaeological excavation was launched in 2009 near Lake Kucukcekmece in the Avcilar district of Istanbul to uncover the ancient city of Bathonea, which is estimated to be 1,600 years old. The excavation is being conducted under the supervision of Associate Professor Fengul Aydingun from Kocaeli University. in an earlier interview with the press, she had said the first two years of...

The average Viking lived a life in which spirituality and thoughts of immortality played a far more important part than the rape and pillage more usually associated with his violent race, according to new research. A study of thousands of excavated Viking graves suggests that rituals were performed at the graveside in which stories about life and death were presented as theatre, with live performances designed to help the passage of the deceased from this world into the next... Detailed analysis of the burials revealed a remarkable variety of objects found alongside the bodies - from everyday items to great...

The bones of one of the women found in one of Norway's most famous Viking graves suggest her ancestors came from the area around the Black Sea. The woman herself was "Norwegian," claims Professor Per Holck at the University of Oslo, who has conducted analyses of DNA material taken from her bones. But Holck says that while she came from the area that today is Norway, her forefathers may have lived in the Black Sea region. Holck, attached to the anthropological division of the university's anatomy institute (Anatomisk institutt), isn't willing to reveal more details pending publication of an article...