Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)
Вусце (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
Vustse (Вусце) is a barrow cemetery near the village of Вусце in Braslaw district, Vitebsk region, Belarus, dated to the seventh to eleventh centuries. It is listed as a cultural heritage site of category 3 (regional significance), code 213В000183.
It lies 1 km south of the village, in forest, to the left of the road to Казяны, and comprises 74 mounds.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Article
Вусце (курганны могільнік)
The cemetery is attributed to a Balto-Slavic population and has been known since the end of the nineteenth century.
DescriptionSources for this section
Sources for this section
The 74 mounds are 0,5 to 1,5 m high and 5 to 12 m in diameter. The cemetery is attributed to a Balto-Slavic population and has been known since the end of the nineteenth century.
ExcavationsSources for this section
Sources for this section
In 1893 Ф. В. Пакроўскі excavated 4 mounds, and М. М. Чарняўскі surveyed the cemetery in 1972. In 1982 В. І. Шадыра and Л. У. Дучыц excavated 9 mounds. The burial rite was cremation on the old ground surface (4 mounds), cremation near the summit (1 mound) and inhumation on the old ground surface (1 mound); 3 mounds were empty.
FindsSources for this section
Sources for this section
The finds include an iron axe, a spearhead, knives, iron and bronze buckles, bronze rattles, a bracelet, and hand-made and wheel-made pottery.
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. The Belarusian records of this kind are mostly cemeteries of small mounds entered 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
Дучыц, Л. У. Курганны могільнік (в. Вусце) / Л. У. Дучыц, В. І. Шадыра // Збор помнікаў гісторыі і культуры Беларусі. Віцебская вобласць / рэдкал.: С. В. Марцэлеў [і інш.]. — Мінск : БелСЭ імя П. Броўкі, 1985. — 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°13′17″ N, 26°29′34″ EFor a GPS or map app: 55.22150, 26.49290
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)Опса
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Dvarykščiaus pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Вайшкуны (курганны могільнік)
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Gedžiūnų pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Gedžiūnėlių pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Богіна (курганны могільнік)
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kretuonų pilkapynas
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Mėžionių pilkapynas
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
1 source behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q97133164wikidata.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Вусце (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