Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Ranina
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Overview
About this site
Overview
Ranina is a group of archaeological monuments near the village of Ranina in Vitebsk district, Vitebsk region, Belarus. It comprises a hillfort and a barrow cemetery, both recorded in the Belarusian register of cultural heritage.
The hillfort is dated to the sixth to eighth centuries CE; the cemetery consists of three mounds.
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Article
Ranina
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The hillfort lies 4 km east of the village, on the left bank of the river Vymnyanka (Вымнянка), in the locality called Zhaunerava (урочышча Жаўнерава). It stands on a hill 20 m high that is surrounded by marsh. The platform is almost circular and measures 46×40 m. Two ramparts and two ditches run along the slopes of the hill.
The barrow cemetery lies 1.8 km east of the village, on the right bank of the Vymnyanka, at the edge of a field. It consists of 3 mounds, each 1.5–2 m high and 10–12 m in diameter.
FindsSources for this section
Sources for this section
Hand-made pottery has been found at the hillfort. The site is dated to the sixth to eighth centuries CE and belongs to a culture of the type of the upper layer of Bantserovshchina (Банцараўшчына).
Along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic, burial mounds mark the territories of the Baltic peoples.
ContextSources for this section
Sources for this section
Along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic, burial mounds mark the territories of the Baltic peoples. Records of this kind in Belarus and Lithuania are mostly cemeteries of small mounds listed in national registers. They are barrow cemeteries and not megaliths.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Baltic barrow cemeteries
Along the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic, burial mounds mark the territories of the Baltic peoples. In Lithuanian they are called pilkapiai, and the Atlas's Lithuanian and Belarusian records are mostly cemeteries of small mounds recorded in national registers. They are barrow cemeteries and not megaliths.
The deepest root of the tradition is the West Baltic barrow culture of the early Iron Age, from which most of the Western Baltic culture arose. That culture, of the Bronze Age and Iron Age along the southern coast of the Baltic, was ethnically Baltic and shared similar monuments and funeral rites; its tribes included the Old Prussians, Galindians, Yotvingians and Skalvians. Further north, the Curonians, a medieval Baltic tribe of the fifth to sixteenth centuries CE, lived on the coast of what are now western Latvia and Lithuania, and their neighbours the Samogitians lived inland to the east. Mounds of the broader barrow tradition, the kurgans, had spread into eastern and northern Europe as early as the third millennium BCE.
Because a cemetery is made up of many small mounds, it records an ordinary community and not a single ruler. Many of these mounds have not been excavated, so the Atlas gives them a broad range and does not claim a date.
When visiting, look for a group of small round mounds under trees or on a river terrace, and note how the mounds are laid out along the terrace or ridge.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Western Baltic culture, Wikipedia: Curonians, Wikipedia: Samogitians, Wikipedia: Kurgan, Wikipedia: Tumulus · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1985
28—33. Збор помнікаў гісторыі і культуры Беларусі. Віцебская вобласць / Рэдкал.: С. В. Марцэлеў [і інш.]. — Мінск: БелСЭ імя Петруся Броўкі, 1985. — С.
Source - 2004
Археалагічныя помнікі раёна // Памяць: Віцебскі раён: гісторыка-дакументальныя хронікі гарадоў і раёнаў Беларусі / рэдкал.: А. П. Красоўскі [і інш.]; уклад. У. І. Мезенцаў; мастак Э. Э. Жакевіч. — Мінск: Мастацкая літаратура, 2004. — С.
Source
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Where it stands
Belarus
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 55°09′06″ N, 30°31′29″ EFor a GPS or map app: 55.15179, 30.52475
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Вароны, археалагічны помнік
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Лебартова, археалагічны помнік
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Лятохі, археалагічны помнік
Мяклава (археалагічны помнік)- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Хатоля
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Бараўляны, археалагічны помнік
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Саўчонкі
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Старое Сяло (археалагічны помнік)
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q96635597wikidata.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Раніна (археалагічны помнік)" (Belarusian), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors