Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Вайшкуны (курганны могільнік)
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
Vaishkuny (Вайшкуны) is a barrow cemetery near the village of Вайшкуны in Пастаўскі раён (Pastavy district), Vitebsk region, Belarus. It lies 2 kilometres north-east of the village, in the locality called Гарэлы Бор, and is listed as a cultural heritage site of category 3 (regional significance).
The cemetery has 21 round mounds and dates to the 9th to 11th centuries. It is attributed to Baltic tribes.
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Article
Вайшкуны (курганны могільнік)
The higher mounds stand in the central part of the cemetery and the lower ones in the western part.
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The 21 round mounds measure from 6 to 10 metres in diameter and from 0.3 to 1.5 m in height. Mounds 7 to 9 m in diameter and 0.5 to 1 m high predominate. The higher mounds stand in the central part of the cemetery and the lower ones in the western part. Most of the mounds are surrounded by ditches with causeways left across them.
ExcavationsSources for this section
Sources for this section
The cemetery was surveyed in 1938 and 1939 by Х. Цэгак-Галубовіч and У. Галубовіч. In 1975 Я. Г. Звяруга excavated 9 mounds in the eastern and northern parts of the cemetery. A varied range of grave goods was recovered from the mounds.
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. In Lithuanian they are called pilkapiai, and the records of this kind in Lithuania and Belarus are mostly cemeteries of small mounds recorded 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
- 511 CE
462. — 511 с. — 10 000 экз. — ISBN 985-11-0035-8. — ISBN 985-11-0068-4 (т.
Source - 1762
1762. Курганны могільнік // Збор помнікаў гісторыі і культуры Беларусі / АН БССР. Ін-т мастацтвазнаўства, этнаграфіі і фальклору; Рэд. кал.: С. В. Марцэлеў (гал. рэд.) і інш. — Мн.: БелСЭ, 1985. — Віцебская вобласць. — С.
Source - 1996
3: Беларусы — Варанец / Рэдкал.: Г. П. Пашкоў і інш. — Мн. : БелЭн, 1996. — Т.
Source - 2001
322. — 496 с., іл. Помнікі археалогіі // Памяць: Пастаўскі раён : гісторыка-дакументальныя хронікі гарадоў і раёнаў Беларусі / рэдкал.: Г. К. Кісялёў [і інш.]; уклад.: К. І. Козак, А. І. Кузняцоў; рэд.-склад. Г. К. Кісялёў; мастак Э. Э. Жакевіч. — Мінск: БЕЛТА, 2001. — С.
Source - 2004
41—44. Пракаповіч, І. М. Ваколіцы Паставаў: помнікі прыроды, гісторыі і культуры з маршрутамі краязнаўчых вандровак / І. М. Пракаповіч. — Паставы : «Сумежжа», 2004. — 60 с.: іл.
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
- 54°59′26″ N, 26°25′52″ EFor a GPS or map app: 54.99046, 26.43111
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)Sarių pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Mėžionių pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Вусце (курганны могільнік)
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Sudotos pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Опса
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kretuonų pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Лынтупы (курганны могільнік)
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Dvarykščiaus pilkapynas
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q90693082wikidata.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Вайшкуны (курганны могільнік)" (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