September 27, 2021

Kremlin Finally Gets Around to Clearing Out Old Basement


Kremlin Finally Gets Around to Clearing Out Old Basement
"Can't you get rid of this one? After all, you never use it." A late-medieval pot, found at the Kremlin. Russian Institute of Archaeology

It's good every now and then to clean out the parts of your house where stuff has accumulated. For the Kremlin, that means digging down to examine what Muscovites of centuries past have left behind.

Archeologists from the Russian Institute of Archeology finished a major dig at the heart of the Moscow Kremlin last week, uncovering some fascinating finds.

Scientists found several artifacts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when rubble was used to level the Kremlin for construction. In addition to fragments of pottery, construction material, and tiles, several coins and the foundations of a handful of estates–likely the former abodes of Russia's old nobility–were also discovered.

Further, several fourteenth-century finds, including rings and jewelry from Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire and several iron objects.

The most interesting find, perhaps, was a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century irrigation bowl, decorated with abstract designs and faces.

The Kremlin's location, high on a hill alongside a river, means that it has always been a great spot for human settlement, with defensive advantages and easy access to water and transportation. Artifacts dated back to the Iron Age, when a small settlement was located near the Archangel Cathedral.

If the Kremlin decides to hold a garage sale for this stuff, we'll be there. Maybe they'll sell it online?

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