Stone labyrinth. Stone Babylons of Solovki. Big Solovetsky Island

The Solovetsky Archipelago is located about 160 km south of the Arctic Circle, in the southwestern part of White Sea, at the entrance to Onega Bay. It consists of six major islands: Bolshoi Solovetsky, Anzersky, Bolshaya Muksalma, Malaya Muksalma, Bolshoy and Maly Zayatsky - and more than 100 small islands. The archipelago is 60 km from the Onega Peninsula, and 40 km from the Karelian coast. The relief of the islands is predominantly hilly, formed under the influence of glaciers. The shores are very picturesque: densely indented, with numerous bays strewn with granite boulders.

The history of the settlement of the Solovetsky Islands has more than seven thousand years. Long before the construction of the monastery, the Solovetsky Islands were inhabited by representatives of various peoples, as evidenced by numerous archaeological sites. In the period III - I millennium BC. e. in the White Sea region lived tribes engaged in sea fishing, lake-river fishing and forest hunting along the shores of the White Sea.

At this time, the settlement of the north-east of Europe by tribes moving behind the receding glacier was completed. They are usually attributed to the proto-Sami peoples, who used rounded plagues as dwellings. Such buildings were typical for peoples leading a nomadic lifestyle. Proto-Sami tribes were distributed throughout the North of Europe in the 6th-2nd millennium BC. e.

At the turn of II - I millennia BC. in the White Sea, Prionezhie, Arkhangelsk region, tribes of the Finno-Ugric type appeared. They came to these lands from the south, from the Kama region and from the upper reaches of the Volga, and gradually pushed the indigenous Sami population to the northern regions of the Kola Peninsula and Scandinavia.

On Russian territory stone labyrinths in addition to the Solovetsky Islands, they are also known on other islands of the White Sea (Kuzova archipelago, Kandalaksha Bay), on the islands Vyborg Bay(Leningrad region), on Kola Peninsula, Novaya Zemlya archipelago. In total, about 50 labyrinths have been discovered in the northwestern part of Russia.

Solovetsky labyrinths are scattered over different islands on an area of ​​more than 320 square kilometers. But most of them are in the south-west of the archipelago, on the Big Zayatsky Island with an area of ​​​​only about 1.5 square kilometers. In fact, the entire Bolshoi Zayatsky Island is a sanctuary. Here you can find three types of structures made of boulders: labyrinths, stone burial mounds and symbolic calculations. They are mainly located in the region of two low mountains- Signal and Sopka. Moreover, there are burial mounds and symbolic calculations on both hills, and labyrinths - only on the western and southern slopes of Signalnaya Mountain.

Labyrinths of the Solovetsky Islands

To date, 35 labyrinths are known on the Solovetsky Islands, 12 of which are located on the territory of the Big Zayatsky Island. The maximum size of the labyrinths of this island is just over 25 meters. The entrances to the labyrinths are oriented to different sides of the world, but the direction to the south prevails. The Solovetsky labyrinths are laid out in such a way that, having reached the center, a person will inevitably return to where they came from, but only the movement will continue in the direction opposite to the spiral of the entrance. On Bolshoi Zayatsky Island, there are different types of labyrinth patterns: concentric-circular, concentric-rectangular, horseshoe-shaped with one or two horseshoes, right-handed single-spiral ("maze-shaped figure").

The first hypotheses about the origin and purpose of the labyrinths belong to the prisoners of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON), which existed on Solovki from 1923 to 1939. A prisoner of the Solovetsky camp, a well-known philosopher, priest P. A. Florensky, wrote: “... here, on the islands of the Solovetsky archipelago, there are wonderful structures called labyrinths in archeology, and “Babylons” in the folk language. These are patterned paths made of stones, mostly boulders, the size of a head, sometimes smaller, up to a fist, with an intricate course; in some cases, the gaps between the stone bands go directly to the center, in other cases they branch out and lead to a dead end. Once in the center, it usually takes some time to get out of there, and after going some way you come to the old place. The shape of the labyrinths is different - round, elliptical, horseshoe-shaped. Among the various conjectures, it seems most likely that they refer, at least in the main, to the Neolithic and to times around the 5th–6th centuries BC. e.; they were built, as they think, by the Germans, driven back by the Celts, and then by the Lapps, who borrowed these buildings from the Germans. It is thought that the arrangement of labyrinths is associated with the cult of the dead and is intended to prevent the soul of the deceased, buried in the center, from coming out - initially at least. However, these assumptions, although more likely, are a dark matter ... Cromlechs, menhirs and, finally, the ancient Cretan labyrinth - are probably related to each other and to the labyrinths of Solovki and Murman, although they differ in size ... "

Stone mounds of the Solovetsky Islands

The boulder mounds of the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island are a kind of burial grounds. During the excavation of similar mounds on another Solovetsky Island, Anzer, the remains of burials according to the rite of cremation (fragments of burnt human bones) and grave goods - flakes and scrapers were found. According to a plausible hypothesis, the builders of the embankments - sea nomads who spent a significant part of their lives at sea, on ships - often went missing, apparently, died in storms, hunting, in battles with enemies. According to their beliefs, even if it was not known for sure whether a person died or was still alive, the ancient people considered the burial rite to be obligatory. Otherwise, the spirit of the deceased, not escorted to another world in accordance with all the rules, could return and begin to take revenge on the tribe, interfering with daily work: fishing, hunting, or even leading tribe members to death.

Solovetsky Monastery

In recent years, Solovki has become a kind of tourist Mecca, and the main historical and cultural attraction of the archipelago is the Solovetsky Monastery. It was founded in 1436 on the Big Solovetsky Island between the Holy Lake and the Bay of Prosperity. Initially, before the appearance of a modern stone monastery, there were wooden buildings of the 15th - early 16th centuries. The architectural complex of the monastery is formed by the Solovetsky Transfiguration Cathedral, Blagoveshchenskaya gate church, the monastery fortress, as well as the buildings of the monastery village and the system of hydraulic structures. The whole area is surrounded by a stone wall up to 11 m high and up to 6 m thick. The monastery is included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.

Boulders and labyrinths of the Solovetsky Islands

Over the long years of research that was carried out on the Solovetsky archipelago, more than a thousand archaeological complexes were discovered, including the largest pagan sanctuary in the European North of Russia, religious and burial structures. The main archaeological evidence is boulder formations, among which the central place is occupied by the so-called labyrinths, which have received the greatest fame.

Labyrinths are mysterious spiral-shaped figures laid out from small boulders on the surface of the earth. The diameter of the labyrinths is from 3.4 to 40 m, the height is no more than 0.5 m. Another name of the labyrinth - "Babylon" - is associated with its structure: the Tower of Babel was climbed in a spiral.

Outside of Russia, labyrinths can be seen in Northern Europe: in Sweden (about 300), Finland (about 150), Norway (20), Estonia (5), Iceland (4), the British Isles (about 30 labyrinths), in Germany ( 3 labyrinths). Swedish and Finnish labyrinths can most often be found along the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia, Åland Islands and the islands of Gotland. British and German labyrinths stand apart: if on the territory of the Baltic Shield and Iceland labyrinths were built of stone, then in the British Isles and Germany they were made of turf.

Time and nature have left their mark on the appearance of the labyrinths. Over the many hundreds of years of their existence, these ancient structures were overgrown with tundra vegetation and covered with turf, and their existence today can be guessed only by faint contours protruding from the surface of the earth. In recent years, labyrinths on the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island have been actively restored, clearing them of sod and vegetation.

In the middle of the labyrinth, there is often a structure made of stones, resembling a small tomb. Encyclopedic scientist N. N. Vinogradov, who published several works on labyrinths and other ancient monuments on the Solovetsky Islands, believed that the stone labyrinth is a symbolic gate to the other world, the entrance to the kingdom of the dead, where the soul, wandering in spirals, loses its way to the world of the living. In his opinion, labyrinths are not just burial structures of local peoples, but sanctuaries, altars, whole complexes associated with the cult of the dead.

Boulder mounds still raise many questions. One of the main ones is, if we consider these structures as funerary, why there are no traces of real burials under most of the mounds.

Today, the cult purpose of the northern labyrinths is not disputed. According to the modern researcher O. Kodola, labyrinths were the central objects of rituals. A large number of labyrinths, their structure, dimensions, orientation relative to the cardinal points can be explained both by the “ceremonial specialization” of each individual labyrinth and the time of their creation.

Until now, the questions of the origin and purpose of boulder structures - labyrinths, stone mounds, and other symbolic calculations - remain open. Only the symbolic role of these monuments is visible. But one thing is certain: in terms of the number and density of stone structures, Bolshoi Zayatsky Island is considered the main sanctuary with labyrinths in the entire White Sea region.

The sign of the labyrinth in Russia is more widely represented in two regions: Dagestan and the White Sea. On this moment in Russia, the most famous are the White Sea labyrinths or, as they are otherwise called, " northern labyrinths". The problems of the "northern labyrinths" are expressed in three questions: who, when and why built them in this area?
"Northern labyrinths" are spiral figures, which are various systems of passages made of small boulder stones. The sizes of the boulders vary in diameter from 3.40 to 24.40 m, their height does not exceed 50 cm.
The most noticeable among the "northern labyrinths" is the Solovetsky cluster of labyrinths. The composition of this cluster includes 35 labyrinths known at the moment, almost a thousand stone mounds, as well as "symbolic" stone calculations, which number in the tens.
Let's take a closer look at them...

The Solovetsky cluster of labyrinths is scattered over the islands of the archipelago, but the most significant part is concentrated on the island called Bolshoi Zayatsky, which is located in the southwest of the archipelago, its area is only 1.5 square kilometers.
On a small area of ​​the island, called Bolshoy Zayatsky, there are a large number of stone excavations of the Solovetsky archipelago. There are 13 labyrinths here, more than 850 boulder mounds. Labyrinths date back to the 1st-2nd century BC. Similar megalithic structures are found in Ireland, Scandinavia, France, as well as in other countries of the world. And perhaps this is evidence that a single civilization lived in these territories for a very long time.

There are a large number of hypotheses of scientists about the purpose of these structures in the form of stone spirals on the ground. locals called labyrinths "babylon". There is an assumption that the labyrinths are associated with ancient cult dances and round dances of the peoples who have long inhabited these lands. There is a hypothesis that these are ancient burials. During the excavations that were organized in some labyrinths of the Bolshoy Zayatsky Island, the remains of ritual fires were found in the center of several of them, but not in all of them. The next hypothesis states that labyrinths are "fish traps". It has been suggested that during low tide the fish did not keep up with finding a way out of the labyrinths and, to the delight of local fishermen, remained lying on the ground. However, a considerable number of labyrinths are built far from water and are not filled with water at all. There are also hypotheses that the labyrinths, in fact, are "magic fishing nets" that served to carry out magical rituals related to sea fishing. It is assumed that the labyrinth is a magical tool of shamans. Also, some researchers believe that labyrinths are "protective nets", the main purpose of which was to intimidate the souls of dead people so that they could not return to the living.

Labyrinths have one entrance, which is also an exit. If you enter the labyrinth and do not cross the borders, that is, go strictly along the grooves, then after some time (for some labyrinths this time is 5-10 minutes, for the second - more than half an hour) you will exit in the same place where you entered.
The question of the purpose of the ancient Solovetsky labyrinths has not been finally resolved. A number of scientists consider labyrinths to be places of entertainment and round dances of a cult nature or grounds for military sports games. Some archaeologists attribute to them a practical purpose - models of fishing traps or fishing structures themselves. Most researchers consider labyrinths to be objects of cult and religious purpose.

N. Vinogradov associated them with the cult of the dead ( Vinogradov N. Solovetsky labyrinths. Their origin and place in a number of homogeneous prehistoric monuments. SOK materials. Issue. 4. Solovki, 1927). Babylon is associated with the rite of initiation and the "lower world" ( Cabo V. Origin and early history of the Australian Aborigines. M., S. 309-304. 1969), with cult magic ( Gurina N. Stone labyrinths of the White Sea. M., S. 125-142. 1948), with a visit to the Solovetsky Islands by the inhabitants of the White Sea region to perform primitive religious rites of burial of the dead ( Kuratov A. Ancient labyrinths of the Arkhangelsk White Sea. Historical and local history collection. Vologda, S. 63-76. 1973).
These were the rites of “... burial and sacrifice (calcined bones of a person, feast animals, birds and fish), rituals associated with totemism and cult magic (figures of sea animals), worship of the Sun (“solar rosette” and round-spiral labyrinths), initiation and, perhaps, others, not yet understood, but associated with the beliefs of the aborigines of the White Sea region.

... built, according to the ideas of the ancients, on the border of two worlds - "middle" and "lower" - the labyrinths most likely symbolized either the lower - otherworldly - world itself, inhabited by spirits that are dead and hostile to man, or a confusing path to it. One function of the labyrinth was, therefore, to ensure the transfer to the lower world of the souls of the dead and buried according to the rite, which included cremation.
… on the other hand, the labyrinths were, apparently, the instrument with which ritual actions were performed. ( Martynov Alexander. Archaeological past of the Solovetsky archipelago: mainland - sea - islands. Almanac "Solovki Sea". No. 1. 2002)
“Most scientists are inclined to think that labyrinths are associated with the religious beliefs of an ancient person (maybe with an astral cult), others see them as a ritual, ceremonial purpose (for example, for testing a person) or grave signs over burials ... N. Gurina proposed to consider labyrinths as plans for complex fishing tools, which the ancient inhabitant of these lands first depicted on the ground, for clarity (along with endowing these images with magical powers), and then transferred them “to nature” - to the sea. The question of labyrinths has not yet received a final scientific resolution. However, the presence of these mysterious ancient structures on the Solovetsky Islands points to a close connection between these islands and the surrounding coastal areas in ancient times and to the unity of their ancient historical destinies. ( Boguslavsky Gustav. Solovetsky Islands: Essays. 3rd ed. Arkhangelsk; North-West book. publishing house, 1978. - 173 p.: ill.)

Scientific researchers suggested that there were also pagan temples in these places.
No less difficult for science was the question of the ethnicity of the peoples who visited the islands of the Solovetsky Archipelago in those old times. Only recently, after the discovery of a flint figurine of a seal on Maly Zayatsky Island, was it possible to confirm that this culture belonged to the Proto-Sami tribes living on the coast of the White Sea. Apparently, at the time when they sailed to the islands, the climatic and geological conditions were different: the climate was much warmer and the sea level was much higher.
In 2003, I was lucky to visit Alexander Martynov, who has been living and working in Solovki since 1978, and this year I bought his book “Ancient paths of the Solovetsky Islands”, published this year and dedicated to the problems of ancient and medieval archaeological sites Solovkov - sites of the eras of the feudal Mesolithic, Neolithic, and early metal, sanctuaries and stone labyrinths, Sami seids and burial grounds. Publishing house "Russian North", 2006. I highly recommend it." (Aleksey Budovsky. Report on a trip to Solovki in September 2006. Part 8. "Big Zayatsky Island" Chapter 2. "Labyrinths". "Brief historical background and a story about visiting the island in 1999." As a manuscript. livejournal. New York, USA. 2006)

“In order to answer the questions, what is the inner meaning of stone labyrinths, are they really connected with the cult of the dead, what do the stone piles in their center and the bands of stone calculations surrounding them mean, it is important to once again turn to both the structure of the labyrinths themselves and to mythology of the peoples of the North. First of all, it is important to analyze the slightest nuances of the masonry of the most common so-called bispiral horseshoe-shaped round labyrinths of the classical type, and then raise the question: what imagery can be behind all this?

Five main features of the shape of masonry labyrinths

"1. The main element of the labyrinth is a spiral, most often composed of single boulder stones in a long row.

2. Throughout its entire length, the spiral in some areas has an expansion and thickening in the form of a stone heap of a round-oval shape. Thickenings are also noticeable at the ends of the spirals, structurally indicated by heaps of stones or larger stones.

3. A single spiral was laid in the form of a line unwinding from the center.

4. The stacking of two spirals inscribed one into the other looks like an intertwined ball.

5. In the center of the labyrinths there is an accumulation of stones in the form of a hill (the hill in the center of the Great Solovetsky labyrinth was destroyed and is not indicated in the figure in the work of N.N. Vinogradov).
If we leave aside the traditional dry “constructivist” approach and look at labyrinths from an artistic point of view, the first thing we can see in the scheme of the labyrinth is a ball of two coiled snakes. The images of snakes with longitudinally elongated heads and rounded tails are especially clearly and expressively presented in the Great Solovetsky Labyrinth, which we took as an example.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that a reptile appears frozen in stone, because in the primitive consciousness of a person who deified and spiritualized the world around him, there was no clear boundary between animate and inanimate nature. The stone was perceived by him as an integral part of this world, people and animals could accept the stone denunciation. As an example, it is enough to cite the seids, who were an integral part of the Saami culture. According to the mythology of many northern peoples, epic characters, including people and animals, were turned into stone.

View of a large labyrinth near the village of Solovetsky. Color photo of Svetlana Konysheva. 2005.
In contrast to the Great Solovetsky labyrinth, in other similar structures, the image of a snake can be expressed more schematically and less plastically. To designate a head, sometimes one large stone or a pile of stones at the end of a stone spiral ribbon is enough. The thickening at the opposite end denoted the snake's tail. There are also quite conditional images of a snake in the form of a ribbon.
A single spiral is a single snake represented in the masonry; the labyrinth, including two spirals, meant a ball of two coiled snakes, whose heads are located in the very center of the labyrinth almost opposite each other. In this case, the coil could have two different forms:

1) a correct horseshoe, when between two lying non-contiguous snakes there was a passage through the entire maze;

2) horseshoes with a cross-shaped intersection of the “torsoes” of snakes, when the path through the labyrinth led to a dead end.
The thickening of a ribbon of stones in one of the sections of the labyrinth now receives a fairly clear interpretation - this is a swallowed victim. It is noteworthy that in the indicated Solovetsky labyrinth, the extension of the snake body is placed directly opposite the entrance. Entering the labyrinth menacingly reminded of the real danger. The artistic expressiveness of the image of snakes in labyrinths, despite the primitiveness of the means used (ordinary boulder stones), is undeniable. We have the right to conclude that the northern stone labyrinths can be attributed not only to archeological monuments, as was thought so far, but also to works of primitive art, since they are a very distant prototype of modern installations - compositions from individual objects. ( Burov Vladimir. On the semantics of the stone labyrinths of the north. Ethnographic Review, No. 1, 2001)

Similar monuments, in addition to the Solovetsky Islands, are found in Karelia and Murmansk region, in the Nordic countries - Finland, Sweden and Norway. Among scientists there is still no consensus on the purpose of these structures.
Here is what the famous philosopher, scientist, inventor and clergyman Pavel Florensky wrote about the Solovetsky labyrinths in 1935:
“Here, on the islands of the Solovetsky archipelago, there are wonderful structures called labyrinths in archeology, and “Babylons” in the folk language. These are patterned paths made of stones, mostly boulders, the size of a head, sometimes smaller, up to a fist, with an intricate course; in some cases, the gaps between the stone bands go directly to the center, in other cases they branch out and lead to a dead end. Once in the center, it’s usually not immediately possible to get out of there, and after going through some path you come to the old place ... They think that the device of the labyrinths is connected with the cult of the dead and is intended to prevent the soul of the deceased buried in the center from going outside - initially at least ... "
Mysterious labyrinths continue to beckon with their mystery, will it ever be revealed?

The Solovetsky land is the land of the holy ascetics and martyrs of Russia, glorified and unknown. The Solovki, or the Soloveisky Islands, as the Pomors used to say in the old days, was the land of worship of the sacred sun of the ancients. It seemed to be an unsolvable riddle for academic science, how the ancient Slavic name was assigned to these islands. V. V. Skopin, the author of the book “On the Solovetsky Islands” wrote: “The technique of mortarless boulder masonry used in the construction of the Solovetsky Monastery and numerous canals indicates the sustainability of the use of this building material on the Solovetsky Islands. Over the centuries, certain traditions have been developed here that allow, although with a large degree of conventionality, to compare the Neolithic boulder mounds of the 2nd millennium BC with cages of the 16th century, ditches of the 17th century with canal walls of the 20th century. Of course, the main condition for the use of the boulder was the wide distribution and availability of this cheap and durable material, but among the spontaneous, little touched by man nature of the North, monuments of the distant past and those closer to us sometimes surprisingly echo each other, creating the illusion of the existence of a single ancient civilization here.

Is it an illusion? Intuition did not disappoint the author of the book. It is no secret that, according to Soviet scientists, the first inhabitants of the Russian North were Finno-Ugric tribes. It was considered good academic tone to explain the entire polysyllabic toponymy of the North based on the Ugric dialects of the northern savages. And suddenly, in the very center of this purely hypothetical Finno-Ugric language area, Solovki appear, from “SOLO”, or “KOLO”, the sun of the ancient Aryans. Of course, the Soviet and post-Soviet academic school knowingly chewed and is chewing folk bread with its toothless mouth, however, not as satisfying lately as pundits would like. There were, and there will be smart people who, with the help of philological balancing act, will prove that Solovki, when rearranging phonemes - the necessary rule, of course, will be found - this is the ancient Finno-Ugric word "Ikvolos", which in translation will sound convincingly like an island or water. Simple and tasteful. After all, apart from Solovki, the Ugrians did not know any other islands, and they did not know water, with the exception of the White Sea. The painted pseudoscientific utopia is just the quintessence of the parascientific approach of the wretched Soviet historical school.

It was this approach that for a long time did not allow one to get closer to understanding the main riddle of the Solovetsky archipelago - the mysterious labyrinths. Get ready not just for an exciting research journey into the past, we are going in search of our ancient ancestral home, to the sacred land that became the cradle of the great Aryan tribe, the descendants of the forefather Japheth. If you are ready, then fasten your seat belts - many of the conclusions and facts can seem dizzying. But first, let's agree to trust common sense and see in the root morpheme of the names of the islands exactly the sun - the object of worship of our ancestors.

So, we take the first step into the mysterious labyrinth of history. The Solovetsky archipelago is the easternmost and, in fact, the northernmost area of ​​distribution of mysterious stone labyrinths throughout Europe. And although the Solovetsky labyrinths make up a relatively small group among the sod-shrubby and stone labyrinths of the northern part of the European continent, it is here that the most ancient building of this kind, and, most importantly, it is on the Solovetsky archipelago, on the Big Zayatsky Island, that the largest of the known labyrinths is located! More than 150 years have passed since the first scientific publications devoted to this problem appeared.

In 1844, E. Baer (E. Vaeg) described a stone labyrinth on the island of Vir in the Gulf of Finland. In the same year, X. F. Massmann (N. R. Massmann) investigated the later sod-shrub “wundercrays” in Germany. Since then, the historiography of the issue has grown significantly, but the problem has not received a reasonable explanation, although there were and are more than one would like to be unreasonable.

The “labyrinth culture” on Solovki is represented not only by the actual stone labyrinths as such, but also by menhirs, seids, stone mounds, combined into a single archaeological complex with dune sites with flint and quartz inventory of the 2nd millennium BC.

At the beginning of the 2nd millennium, the sites of Sami reindeer herders can be traced in this area. This was enough for the ardent imagination of pundits to recognize the ancient culture of the mysterious labyrinths of the Proto-Sami. The ancient oral traditions of the Sami themselves were not taken into account, in which they connect the labyrinths with the ancient tribes that lived in the Russian North before the Sami came there from the Urals. It is authentically known that the Saami themselves did not build any labyrinths and could not explain their practical or sacred meaning. But where is the poor Saami to compete with Soviet academic science. Labyrinths have been recognized as ground plans for fish traps. Legitimate question: why do the Saami need this stone drawing? The answer given to this question by the classics of the materialist, Marxist-Leninist international school is shocking in its Bolshevik directness and unpretentiousness. It turns out that the poor Sami absent-mindedly often forgot how to set fish traps, and they had to go ashore and restore them in memory according to stone drawings, and then run headlong to the water so as not to forget again along the way. The catch of the poor fellows, apparently, was unimportant.

Studying the fishing experience of armchair wise men, it is impossible to understand why the trap labyrinths had to be arranged so that the fish would enter there just as easily as they would leave. What motivated the poor Sami to make such useless traps that the fish laughed at? Apparently, the age-old fidelity to the tradition of reindeer herders and part-time amateur fishermen overcame the feeling of hunger. So the poor Sami lived without a fish, which cannot be said about their academic colleagues with legal salary supplements for candidate and doctoral degrees for "fish traps".

Here it would be appropriate to briefly mention other versions regarding the purpose of labyrinths. I have heard the opinion that the pattern of many labyrinths repeats the intrauterine muscles of a woman. This assumption is more than funny, but in a sense it captures the grain of truth. The fact is that in the center of the labyrinths small stone mounds were erected, under which the remains of people are found, cremated, however, in a different place. In this case, the author of this assumption is trying to draw an analogy with the ancient Aryan burials in a crouched position, repeating the posture of the embryo. There is an idea of ​​a second birth of the deceased for other existence in the Kingdom of Shadows. However, we cannot consider this assumption satisfactory, if only because many labyrinths have different shapes and configurations, many of which, with the most sophisticated imagination of a man, after a long, forced loneliness, cannot resemble the genital female organs.

There is another funny theory. Its essence is that the labyrinths served for a kind of initiation of youth under the scrutiny of the buried ancestor. It is assumed that the initiate should have been able to enter the labyrinth and exit it just as successfully. It was implied that many of the test subjects could not do this. Those who have seen the labyrinths with their own eyes can testify that this test may be beyond the power of only subjects in a state of exacerbation of delirium tremens. Out of respect for our ancestors, we cannot allow their “pre-conscription” youth to often suffer from this ailment of civilized humanity. The sacred side of metaphysics of such initiation was not even mentioned.

Before proceeding to the presentation of our considerations regarding the purpose of labyrinths in antiquity, let us touch upon the ecological and historical landscape of Solovki, which miraculously preserved for us in an untouched form the constructions of our ancestors who inhabited the mysterious, attractive and passionately, lately, sought by Russian intellectuals Hyperborea, whose indisputable archaeological monument are the sacred labyrinths. Most of the labyrinths on Solovki lie relative to sea level at the level of the first sea terrace, which was formed no earlier than the 3rd millennium BC, while the last labyrinths in terms of their location can be dated to the end of the 2nd - the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. This almost coincides in time with the beginning of the megalithic cultures in Scandinavia and the British Isles.

It is very important to note that the ecological background of the Solovetsky Islands has been unchanged over the past three millennia. It is surprising that the monuments of primitive archeology still lie untouched on a thin, only a few centimeters, layer of soil. Even more surprising is the fact that on the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island of the Solovetsky Archipelago, the most ancient labyrinths, including the largest known in Europe, were carefully preserved for us by the martyrs of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp. Blessed memory to them.

One of the most mysterious archeological objects of this island is a small round rosette made of white quartzite. An even circle with a diameter of about 1.5 meters is divided into two equal sectors, one of which is additionally divided into six equal parts. Of course, the socket has a connection with the ancient solar cult of the ancient Indo-Europeans. The remarkable study of the Indian scientist of the beginning of the 20th century L. B. Tilak, the author of the book “Arctic Ancestral Home in the Vedas”, in which he flawlessly substantiated the thesis that the ancestral home of the Aryan tribes was Arctic, Hyperborea of ​​the ancient Hellenes. In particular, L. B. Tilak points out that in the hymn of the Rig Veda (1, 164, 12), the first line of the verse describes a year with 12 forms and five seasons, and the second line already defines a year with six seasons and 12 months, naming it, however, "saptashva" - seven horses, or "saptachakra" - seven wheels, which refers to the seven months, or seven suns, or seven rays.

Scheme of the stone labyrinth "Big Babylon". School Bay of the Big Solovetsky Island.

These ancient epithets, preserved in the text of the Rigveda, no longer reflect, even in the context of this hymn, the actual reality, but clearly testify to the ancient tradition, when the year of the distant Aryan ancestors consisted of seven months, or of seven suns, as indicated in the legend. about Aditi and her sons. It is this testimony of Tilak that may contain the semantic clue to the sacred symbolism of the quartz rosette, divided into seven sectors! In addition, Bolshoy Zayatsky Island is simply amazing with an abundance of stone mounds. This distinguishes it from all the archaeological sites of the North. Before us is the largest sanctuary of antiquity.

Cromlech. Western Europe. This megalithic structure has a common solar cult with the labyrinths of the Russian North.

There is a similar, but not as impressive archaeological site in Finland. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Finnish archaeologist Päkkenen at the mouth of the Torneo River, next to the labyrinths, counted about thirty stone heaps of a cult nature. Probably, similar mounds of antiquity accompanied earlier all sanctuaries with labyrinths.

Let's go back to our North. Near the ancient Pomeranian village of Umba, the famous Soviet historian and publicist A. A. Nikitin saw and described another significant archaeological site. We are talking about stone chambers made of slabs. Apparently, these were also cenotaphs - the burial chambers of the souls of the dead, which are also numerous mounds of boulders. As for the stone chambers, they would later be reproduced in the funeral rites of many Indo-European peoples. Nikitin was sure that, despite the differences, the stone mounds of the Bolshoi Zayatsky Island and the stone crypts of Umba belonged to the same people. It's just that there were no plates on the Big Zayatsky Island. It is important that similar forms of burial existed in the British Isles in the early Bronze Age (2500-1500 BC).

In the North, there are also transitional forms of such structures. For example, heaps piled on pebbles and lined with boulders. In general, the burial rite was the same everywhere: the body or what was left of it after cremation was placed on the surface of the soil and a burial structure was erected over it. However, as we have already noted, these were often symbolic monuments over the spirit of the deceased - cenotaphs.

Another remarkable place in the Solovetsky archipelago is Kaporskaya Bay. Of the three labyrinths known here, one is well preserved. When dismantling one of the stone piles near the labyrinth, in a pit filled with humus, calcined human bones, a quartz scraper, quartz and flint flakes, fish vertebrae, and fragments of seal bones were found. Here, within the limits of the Cape of Labyrinths, traces of the quartz industry were recorded. The ensemble of ancient stone structures, which included three labyrinths, 17 stone mounds, a stone ridge of artificial origin and other structures, is the first known sanctuary on Solovki dating back to the 1st millennium BC.

On the Kolguy peninsula, a labyrinth has been preserved, which is almost a complete analogue of the stone labyrinth near Perech-Navolok on the Big Solovetsky Island. Nearby on the same terrace is the primitive site Kolguevskaya-1. The flint inventory of the site has many analogies among the stone tools from the dune sites of the Summer Coast of the White Sea and dates back to the 2nd-1st millennium BC.

The parking lot and the stone labyrinths of Kolguy form a single synchronic series. It is appropriate to assume that the labyrinths were built by the inhabitants of the Kolguevskaya-1 site, and they themselves moved to the island from the Onega Peninsula. To the west of the Kolguevskaya-1 site is the Kolguevskaya-2 site, which is dated at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. So the bizarre pattern of labyrinths outlines the boundaries of the ancient ancestral home of Europeans - Hyperborea, or, as the Iranians used to say, Airyana Vaeji - the Aryan paradise.

As L. G. Tilak, already mentioned above, notes, the traditions in the Vendidad, the main part of the Avesta, the sacred book of the ancient Persians, concern the ancient Iranian paradise in the far North, the inhabitants of which the year seemed to be one day and which was destroyed by snow and ice when the earth was covered with a thick layer of ice, convincingly showing the geographical localization of the pan-Aryan ancestral home. These facts cannot be neglected, since the hymns of the sacred texts of the Avesta and the Rig Veda are the oldest record of the life of the ancient Aryan tribes. And if the traditions of the Western Indo-Europeans, according to the research of the foreign professor Rice, point to Finland and the White Sea as the homeland of the Aryans, then the traditions of the Vedas and the Avesta take us much further to the North - after all, the dawn that continuously lasts for thirty days, described in the Vedas, is possible only a few degrees from the North Pole. And although the localization along the latitude of the Aryan homeland is more or less definable, there is nothing in the traditions of the Indo-Europeans regarding the meridional location of these lands.

L. G. Tilak believed that since we draw all the main data on polar localization from the sacred texts of the “Asian” Aryans, then the ancestral home should lie at the pole, opposite the Siberian coast. However, we can here object to the scientist. The best preservation of information about the ancestral home could have remained with the eastern branch of the Aryan tribe only due to the fact that the sacred geography of the ancestral home, having fallen into the books of the Vedas and Avesta consecrated by religious tradition, began to be perceived as part of an unchanging cult. In addition, we can reasonably assume that the eastern The Aryans were among the last to leave their polar ancestral home, as were their closest relatives, the Slavs.

However, Tilak himself cites evidence that the western branch of the Aryans also retained clear memories of their polar homeland. Norwegian legends place the country of the immortals somewhere north of Finland, by the White Sea! Common Norse mythology sees the home of the gods in the same place, in the North. The vague legends of the island Celts also see the country of their ancestors in the far North. And all this is by no means news for the scientific world, not a tribute to the fashion for extravagant theories. The question of the possibility of discovering the homeland of the Aryans and other nations in the region of the North Pole was also discussed by Dr. Warren at the end of the 19th century in his book Paradise Found, or the Cradle human race at the North Pole". Before him, the scholar-writer de Saporta expressed the same idea in clear terms. In this regard, Tilak notes that even the Bible leaves the question of the exact location of Eden open. The Archbishop of Veliky Novgorod at the beginning of the 14th century, Vasily Kalika (Kalika is a kalika passing by Russian epics, a hero in humility or on pilgrimage. - Approx. Aut.) wrote in the "Message" to the Tver Bishop Theodore about the journey of the squad of Novgorodians led by Miroslav and his son Yakov in Arctic Ocean. Novgorodians washed up on high and unknown mountains. “And when I saw on that mountain the Deesis was written with a wondrous azure and marveled beyond measure, as if it were not created by human hands, but by the grace of God; and the light was in that place self-radiant... shining brighter than the sun; but on the mountains on those rejoicings, many voices are heard and joyful voices are broadcasting.

Archbishop Vasily believed that the Novgorodians found in the North the gates of an earthly paradise lost by their ancestors. It is extremely important for us and one more ancient evidence. However, it does not contain information about paradise lands, but leads to another mystery of the historical existence of our Slovene-Russian people.

In the 15th century, the Western European traveler Mavro Urbino wrote, referring to the message of Philip Callimachus to Pope Innocent the Eighth, that the Russians from Biarmia, sailing in the North Sea, discovered 107 years before this message, hitherto unknown, inhabited by the Slavic people and subject to eternal cold island. The Russians, according to Urbino, called this island Philipodium; it surpassed Cyprus in size and was shown on maps under the name "New Earth".

This unknown island could also be the now known Novaya Zemlya or even Svalbard. And already in the XIV century, the people of the Slovene language living there from ancient times met shocked Muscovites. Describing this discovery, it is impossible not to use a lot of exclamation marks. It completely reverses all the usual academic clichés about the late Slavic settlement in the North. The people living there were not called by the informants of the Italians Russian, but Slovenian. This means that these original Slavs did not participate until the 14th century in the ethnogenesis of the Russian people.

This means only one thing: the Russians discovered in the North the original population of the region, which retained its original language and genotype. And what really seems miraculous is that these people were of the Slavic language and had no connection with the continent and the main body of Slavs. It seems that these mysterious Slavs were not the Novgorod Pomors who came to the island in the 9th-10th centuries, which the Muscovites would emphasize when talking about their wonderful discovery.

It turns out that the Russian North has been the original territory of Slovene Russians since time immemorial, which our ancestors well remembered back in the 15th century. Thus, the search for the mysterious Hyperborea and walking through the mysterious labyrinths for us acquire a special, sacred meaning of the return of the historical heritage - the Slavic ancestral home, the return to the holy homeland of our ancestors.

Arabic medieval cosmographer Dimeshki, describing the northern limit inhabited world, the mysterious island of ancient authors Thule, wrote that the land of Thule is inhabited by Slavs. The modern researcher V. N. Demin in the book "Annalistic Rus'" cites an interesting fact. It turns out that the Greater Poland Chronicle of the 15th century states that the ethnonym "Poles" comes from the North Pole. In fact, this statement of the ancient Polish author is not entirely true. Of course, the ethnonym "Poles" does not come from the North Pole. But it's different. Before us is evidence that in the memory of the medieval Western Slavs lived legends about the northern ancestral home.

Let's go back to Solovki. On the northern coast of Anzersky Island there is a unique spiral labyrinth. Single-spiral labyrinths are among the simplest types, and probably the oldest. The spiral in the design of the labyrinths is twisted from left to right - a technique that was often used by ancient builders. However, the Anzersky labyrinth from the Kirillovskaya Bay has its own unique features: the wall at the entrance to the labyrinth was deliberately curved in order to facilitate access to this mysterious sanctuary of the ancients. An analysis of the Solovetsky archaeological data, a comparison of labyrinths with a variety of ethnographic material and historical sources, but most importantly, with representative analogues of labyrinths in petrography, pictography and applied art of the peoples of Europe, which will be discussed below, convinces of the cult, sacred purpose of labyrinths.

Solovetsky labyrinths are mainly concentrated in four sanctuaries (one each on Bolshoy Zayatsky Island and Bolshoi Solovetsky, two on Anzer). They were described in detail by the Soviet scientist N. N. Vinogradov, whom we will mention later in the course of our investigation. It has been established that the northerners buried the dead in stone mounds, just as their descendants then buried their relatives in earthen mounds, where climate and soil allowed this on new lands far from their ancestral home. The souls of the dead were buried in cenotaphs, as well as in stone boxes (dolmens). There is an opinion that the ritual actions associated with labyrinths have found their further development in the cult component of the traditional dances of the Indo-Europeans. These are, first of all, round dances of Russian Slavs and ribbon dances in the choreography of German Thuringia. The scientist A. A. Kuratov believes that military and sports games in ancient labyrinths can also be attributed here: “ludus Troy”, “Trojan game”, “Trojan castle”. Something similar happened around the old German "wunderkrais".

Schemes of stone labyrinths of the Solovetsky Islands.

Labyrinth on the Kolguy Peninsula of the Anzersky Island of the Solovetsky Archipelago.

The difficulty in understanding the meaning of labyrinths comes from the fact that modern European culture has lost the keys to understanding sacred symbols. Especially when it comes to pre-Christian symbols of Aryan ancestors.

Image of a labyrinth from the cathedral city of Lucca, Italy.

However, in fairness, it should be noted that the Christian church had such an understanding. Moreover, the labyrinth was rethought within the framework of the early Christian religious culture. The very word labyrinth - " labyrinthus”, according to the witty guess of Arthur Evans, who discovered the ancient Minoan culture in Crete, which supposedly belonged to the first Indo-Europeans Mediterranean region- Carians, Lycians and related Pelasgians, - etymologically connected with " labris”, a labrys - a two-bladed ax - an integral attribute of Zeus, a sacred symbol that expressed the principle of the unity of royal power in secular and spiritual incarnations among the ancient Aryans. So, labrys is a symbol of royal power, and Zeus of Labrand is the patron deity of the king, but more on that a little later.

As for the church, it placed images of labyrinths as a newly comprehended ancient symbol, interpreting it as an image of the path of the soul of a lost sinner to salvation. We can see such images in the majestic cathedrals in Chartres, Reims, St. Bertin, Amiens. In a church in Sibbo, Niland, Finland, a wall painting shows a mysterious saint, or even a pagan goddess, in a labyrinth. A significant number of various kinds of labyrinths are located on the lands of the Celts. There are especially many of them in Ireland. But labyrinths are also found on the outskirts of the Celtic world. In the Spanish province of Galicia, spiral labyrinths are carved on stone, identical in their iconography to Irish ones. And this is no coincidence, because Galicia, located in the north-west of Spain, is the place where the Gauls came long before the Roman expansion to the Iberian Peninsula. The Museum of National Art of Catalonia, in Barcelona, ​​houses the largest collection of Romanesque art in Europe. One of the halls contains frescoes taken from a small Romanesque church, the Church of St. Mary, in the village of Taull, in the Spanish Pyrenees. On the first pillar of the central nave, to the left of the entrance, right under the fresco of St. Clement, graffiti has been preserved - a magnificent square-shaped labyrinth, about 40 by 40 centimeters. The shape and design of this labyrinth from Spain makes it related not only to the labyrinths of the Russian North, but also to the square “Babylons”. By the way, it is the golden "Babylon" of a peculiar pattern on a red shield that is the coat of arms of the northernmost part of Spain, ancient Navarre. On the façade of the 1611 Franciscan church in Vienna, we can also see simple single-spiral labyrinths. Also in Vienna, in the Hofburg Palace, in the collection of Habsburg treasures, there is a remarkable leather case for a reliquary in the shape of a cross dating from 1400. The case is decorated with spirals. But the most interesting thing about it is its shape and pattern of the arrangement of spiral labyrinths. The case surprisingly resembles the famous and mysterious Valaam cross. For us, the Slavs, the veneration of the dance labyrinth of the ancient princess Lyubusha in already Christian Prague is undoubtedly an important evidence.

Chalk drawings in the abandoned medieval stone mines at Chaldon. Surrey, England. 1600 year. It is believed that they were part of the pagan relic rituals of workers. On the rock there is a swastika - "Celtic rose" and a labyrinth.

Plans for labyrinths, prodigies in Germany.

Cake baked for the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain. Cambridgeshire (England), 1987. The motif of the labyrinth has survived to this day in English families.

Dance floor in the form of a labyrinth of the shoemaker's guild in Stolp, Pomerania (Słupsk, Poland). Pomeranian archive, 1784

Labyrinth in modern art, dedicated to Celtic mythology.

Path to Paradise. Allegorical iconographic image with a labyrinth as the semantic center of the composition. Illustration from the work of Ya. A. Bogatenko: "Features of moral symbolism in Russian iconography." Here the labyrinth represents the difficult path of the escaping soul on the road to Paradise.

Plan for the construction of the labyrinths of Europe from the cross base.

The sacred dance, the solar cult of the Aryans and the labyrinth are a special theme. A drawing of the dance labyrinth of the shoemaker's guild in Poland is known. The dance in the labyrinth for the ancients had the same meaning as the Russian round dance - a sacred, circular dance dedicated to the solar deity of the Slavs Khors. Dance as a divine service, what is the sacred meaning of such a sacred action. For example, in the Celtic tradition, the places of special reverence were considered tracts that were named Temenos(moated territory, literally "Separate place") with a temple building. The latter, however, was given secondary importance. Temenos usually had the shape of a square or rectangle, but even if the shape was irregular, the sides still remained straight. Sometimes the sanctuaries were located around trees and pillars, perhaps decorated with various carvings or colors, as we can see on the "maypoles" in modern England. In the center of a round, moated "sacred territory" near the town of Goloring, not far from Koblenz in Germany, a characteristic depression was discovered. In general, this archaeological complex belongs to the VI century BC. Archaeologists confirm that they walked around the sanctuary, perhaps in a circular dance, like the "Maypoles" in England. Let us recall the Russian round dance around birches under the well-known song about how “a birch tree stood in a field ...” Around the sacred mound in Norma, in the Marne department, in France, belonging to the Latin-2 culture, the surface of the earth on an area of ​​​​about 20 square meters. meters is strongly compressed, as if ritual processions and dances around a certain central point were performed here from generation to generation.

Labyrinths of the Russian North. White Sea and Novaya Zemlya. The presence of a labyrinth on Novaya Zemlya helps us understand what kind of mysterious Slavs lived on a distant polar island. opened by Muscovites only in the fifteenth century.

Sacred symbols of the ancient Cretan state: Labrys decorated with spiral "labyrinths". Here we note one interesting fact. According to Herodotus, the ancient tribe of the Lycians arrived in Asia Minor, in the land of ancient Lycia, from the island of Crete. Before their arrival, the country was called Miliada, and the inhabitants were called Solims. From Lycia, the poet Olen came to Delos, composing hymns in honor of the divine newcomers to the island from Hyperborea, in honor of Arga and Opis. who arrived on Delos along with the Hyperborean deities themselves: Apollo and Artemis. In the light of these data, it is not so surprising to see in the museum of the ancient city of Hieropolis in Asia Minor, located not far from Laodicea and coastal Lycia, a tombstone with an interesting image of Apollo Lairbenos, Apollo with a labrys! The historical threads connecting Crete, Aikia and Hyperborea are closely intertwined.

In general, stone and earth mounds, labyrinths and "May trees" in the beliefs of the Aryan peoples were a single sacred complex. Sacred places were marked with various symbolic figures on the hills, Maypoles, pyramids and labyrinths. Among the Germans, stone pyramids were usually erected where the most important ceremonies took place, blots.

This word means blood sacrifice. Each pyramid had its own name, for example famous mountain Flocks (Flokavarda, Landnamabok). Often such structures were erected by the Germans and Celts near significant borders. Welander's Shaft, a boundary marker near Whiteleaf in Buckinghamshire, is mentioned in an ancient Saxon charter from 903. It was a kind of "Maypole", or a phallic symbol dedicated to the blacksmith god Weland. The most famous of these pillars in history is Irminsul, which stood at Eresburg (now Ober-Marsberg, Westphalia, Germany). This large wooden column, set in an open area, was worshiped by all the Saxons. In their language, the column was called Irminsul, which, roughly translated into Latin, was translated as "pillar of the world." The Saxons treated this pillar as the sacred center of the universe. The labyrinths of the Germans were used in spring rituals in predicting the weather and ceremonies in honor of the dead, such as, for example, in Rosaring, in Laas, Uppland, in Sweden, where the direct "road of the dead" and the stone labyrinth adjoined the ancient cemetery.

Returning to ritual dances, we point out that the images of Minoan Crete often depicted people dancing in a fenced area around an olive or fig tree. Sometimes you can see a hovering goddess above them. Nigel Pennick rightly believes that this symbolizes the accessibility of the goddess to the gaze or supersensory contact, as we believe, people who have entered a state of trance. The Iliad tells how King Minos built a "dancing circle" for his daughter Ariadne. Near some ancient tombs, there were also special areas for dancing. Apparently, the dance in the labyrinth among the ancient Aryans was revered as a special sacred rite, through which it was possible to enter into supersensory contact with the souls of the ancestors located in the land of darkness, or the night sun, the monastery where the sun disk went during the long polar night in the ancestral home. .

But why was such contact guaranteed only by a dance in the labyrinth, or simply in a spiral? It is more than likely that the simplest spiral labyrinths of the Russian North were not at all accidentally located near the water. And it is no coincidence that the spiral of the simplest labyrinths was a graphic representation of a water funnel! A remarkable modern scientist, author of the work “Pigeon Book. The Sacred Legend of the Russian People ”M. L. Seryakov gives the most interesting considerations regarding the deep archetypes associated with the water element among the Indo-Europeans. In particular, he writes: “The concept of depth in Russian is primarily associated with water. Both among our people, in particular, and among the Indo-Europeans as a whole, this element always marked a different (in relation to the earth) world and fixed the moment of transition there. In this regard, the Russian riddle about fish is very indicative: “Who lives in the next world, but dies in this one?” The same unambiguous indications are given by the texts of Russian fairy tales: “Here the ball rolled and rolled and straight into the sea: the sea receded, the road opened; the fool stepped once and found himself with his guides in the next world.

In this regard, the worldview of other Indo-European peoples is not fundamentally different either. So, analyzing the structure of the medieval German epic "The Song of the Nibelungs" and highlighting three different models in it, A. Ya. Gurevich emphasizes: “It is curious to note that the transition from one space-time to another is made every time by overcoming a water barrier... The connection of moving from one space-time to another with overcoming a water obstacle is not accidental. Let me remind you that the way to the other world, according to the beliefs of the Germans, was by sea, and therefore the ship played a primary role in their funeral rites.

All this tells us that the attempts of modern scientists to look for the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans in the steppe spaces of Eurasia are absolutely untenable. The proximity of the sea-ocean, a factor traceable to the ancient traditions of the Aryan peoples, should be the main key to the search for the ancestral home. The Russian people also cannot be driven into the swamps of Pripyat, where their ancestral home is often sought with such persistence. M. L. Seryakov rightly pointed out that the Novgorod epic about Sadko stands apart and has no parallels in the epic works of other Slavic peoples. Consequently, it was not borrowed from the Slavic neighbors. The plot about the sea god and the singer could have arisen only during the time of the all-Aryan community. Ideas about sea ​​depth, in which selected singers can see the secrets of the divine cosmos and other being invisible to the ordinary gaze, must have existed among the ancestors of the Novgorod Slovenes as early as the 3rd century BC. And the integral presence in the plot of the abyss of the sea, but not the river and lake, should turn our eyes to the shores of the White and Baltic Seas, as to the most likely areas of the original habitat of the ancestors of the Slavs.

Let us return to the place and role of the water barrier in myths and funeral rites. Water, as a visible image of another world, was considered as a habitat for supernatural power, the souls of ancestors. Having determined that the gods live in the depths of the waters, the Indo-Europeans also determined the resting place of the souls of the ancestors there. In the Russian North, the custom of “guarding the soul” was widespread: when a person died, a cup of water was left next to the body, which was watched by relatives. It was believed that at the moment of the final exodus of the soul from the body, the water in the vessel would sway. However, the Indo-Europeans did not contrast the sky and body of water. The souls of the ancestors lived here and there.

To better understand this dualism in the perception of another world, let us turn to Indian mythology. The example of the Adityas, the supreme class of heavenly gods, is very indicative in this respect. M. L. Seryakov writes that “The word “deep” as applied to the Adityas (a class of gods - the sons of the goddess Aditi, headed by Varuna) must be taken literally, since they belong to the depths of the lower world, which, in turn, constitutes a concept inherited from Indo-Iranian mythology. It was the realm of the dead, and Varuna was the god of death... The lower world at night looks like hanging above the ground in an inverted position. The kingdom of Varuna was conceived as underground cosmic waters, which are under the earth during the day, and become the sky at night. Thus, the funnel-shaped spiral of the labyrinth made it possible to mystically communicate with the souls of ancestors located in cosmic waters, whose location is both in the depths and in heaven. The sun itself, in the view of the ancients, wanders at night in the labyrinth of cosmic waters.

Headdress of the Novgorod province of the 19th century. The spirals on the dress symbolize the sun and indicate the undoubted connection of the spiral labyrinths with the solar cult symbolism of the ancient Slavs.

The motif of the labyrinth was preserved in the ornamentation of embroideries and wood carvings among all the northern Aryans who remained after the settlement of the Aryan tribes in their ancestral home or settled nearby, on the Scandinavian Peninsula.

For example, a labyrinth can be seen on a linen skating rink in the Museum of Gotland Island, Sweden, as well as on a wooden rock for rewinding threads from the village of Nyukhcha, Pinezhsky district, Arkhangelsk region. In the petrography of Dagestan, images of spiral and horseshoe-shaped labyrinths are often found. An essential detail of the Dagestan labyrinths is that their images always accompany the grave complexes, which we observe mainly on Solovki. And this already brings us close to two important conclusions. First, this is that the understanding of the labyrinth in Christianity as the path that the soul makes is apparently very close to the purpose of labyrinths in antiquity. More important discoveries in this direction we are waiting further. The second is the obvious belonging of the labyrinth to the culture of the ancient Aryans. In this case, in Dagestan we have clear material evidence of the advance of the Aryans to the south through the Caucasus. It is very possible that these were the ancestors of those who later became known in the Middle East under the name of the Mitanians, who brought the high art of horse dressage to the East. Looking ahead, let us also point out the spiral ornament, which was brought by the Aryans to India. The brightest example the preservation of the spiral labyrinth as a symbol of the sun among the Indian Aryans are the details of the decor of the four gates of the Sanchi stupa - a Buddhist shrine of the 1st century BC. Architraves - the transverse beams of the gate symbolize the heavens, at the ends of which solar spirals are depicted.

Section of the Arkhangelsk province, decorated with single-spiral curls - "labyrinths".

Let's take a closer look at the specifics of labyrinth drawings. According to the scientist A. A. Miller, the prototype of any labyrinth is a spiral, and the square labyrinth acts as a later version of the round and horseshoe-shaped labyrinths. Why exactly the spiral was the prototype of the complicated forms of the later labyrinths, we could understand when we analyzed the connection of the labyrinth with the water element, with the whirlpool funnel a little higher.

An English "fairy hill" with a door leading to the Underworld. Glastonbury Tor probably played the role of such a hill - at least in the Welsh mythological tradition.

Now let's move from the symbol of depth to the symbol of height, binary acting together in the symbolism of the labyrinth. Here it is appropriate to recall the drawing on the stone next to the grave of Prince Truvor. It depicts a kind of square labyrinth: three concentric squares connected by two cross-shaped lines running at right angles. In Northern Rus', such images, as well as labyrinths of various configurations, were called “Babylons”, and they symbolized the world mountain, the cosmic center of the universe.

Exactly the same "Babylon", as on the grave of Truvor, was found on a stone two thousand years ago in France, on the ancient border between the two largest tribes of ancient Gaul: the Carnuts and the Biturigs, who claimed a leading role in the entire continental Gallic world. Then this symbol expressed a kind of sacred center of this world. The traditionalist philosopher René Guenon calls the symbol of the triple square the "triple druidic fence" and sees in it a symbol of the druidic hierarchy. French historian Louis Charpentier believes that one of the secrets of the Templars was the revival of ancient Celtic rituals. It is no coincidence, according to Charpentier, that the Templars, arrested by the King of France Philippe the Handsome and kept in the castle of Chinon, painted mysterious signs on the walls of the prison: flaming hearts, crosses, a field with squares, carbuncles and a triple druidic fence.

B. A. Rybakov suggested that in our country this image is connected with the calculations of the architects of Ancient Rus'. Out of respect for B. A. Rybakov’s services to historical science, we will assume that he was joking. In his study of ancient symbols, A. Golan argued that "a sign in the form of several rectangles inscribed in each other is a plan" sacred mountain", personifying the middle of the earth." To this we must add that this is not just a mountain and not just the middle of the earth, it is an image of the polar mountain Meru - the sacred center of the Universe. However, the most surprising thing is that the same “Babylons”, with exactly the same pattern, were discovered by the author of these lines both in the sacred city of Constantinople, and not somewhere, but in the most sacred, nodal points of the geography of Constantinople. One such "Babylon" is located in the choirs of St. Sophia Cathedral. The drawing is scratched on the railing next to the famous autograph of the Norwegian Viking Halfdan. Another “Babylon” can be seen in the courtyard of the Seven-Tower Castle, right at the Golden Gate, into which, according to legend, the liberators of the city of Constantine should enter - “xanphon genos”, a fair-haired family, embodied in the power of the Russian Orthodox army.

The oldest pan-European game "in the mill". Chips are located on the image of "babylon".

"Babylon" on the board for playing "mill". Novgorod, 12th century

Hallmarks on bricks from the Khazar Sarkel. The image of "Babylon" is clearly visible on the central stamp.

Byzantine capital. Spiral decor is a legacy of the capitals of ancient Greek Ioanic columns.

Surprisingly, the same pattern of "Babylon" is found not only in the most sacred places of the Indo-European world, but also in the main shrines of Ecumenical Orthodoxy. Another similar "Babylon" the author of these lines happened to see in the museum of Veliky Novgorod. On a wooden plate of the XII century, an exact copy with several additional elements of the "Babylon" from Hagia Sophia of Tsaregradskaya. The signature under the plate is “a board for playing the“ mill ”. The fact is that in the Middle Ages in Rus' and in Europe they really played the game with black and white chips on the “Babylons”, moving them in a special way. The game was kind of like our tic-tac-toe. Both in Germany and in Russia the game was called the same - "mill". It is believed that this game was played by Roman soldiers. However, it is extremely important to take into account that the image of the "Babylons" is often found precisely carved on stone, and even on an uneven surface. In this case, the straight lines of the picture are ideal. What would be easier for the game to draw a "triple fence" on the ground or on the sand, without much concern for the ideality of the drawing, the need for which disappeared with the end of the fleeting game?

Ancient Russian stones with images of "Babylons" of the XIII-XIV centuries.

Pavement in Jerusalem in Roman times.

In addition to the solar rosette, the “Babylon” is clearly visible on the stone.

"Babylon" on a stone at the Golden Gate in Constantinople. (Photo by the author).

"Babylon" on a stone at the grave of Prince Truvor in Izborsk. (Photo by the author).

We must always remember that many modern games, such as hockey, basketball and others, originate from sacred rites, a kind of religious ceremonies, whose game moment broke away from the sacred concept in later times. Gradually, the sacred meaning of the ritual was lost, and the sacred action, in isolation from the correct understanding of the symbolic game settings, becomes just a game of chance, sometimes, as in the case of "Babylon", preserving the forgotten sacred symbolism. The drawing for the game of "mill" is also called the image of "Babylon" on a stone in the castle of Gambacher, near Neustadt, in the Palatinate of the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. On the pavement slab of the Roman period in Jerusalem, the same triple fence - "Babylon". Before us is the tradition of transferring the symbol of the sacred center of the Universe to the sacred points of the Aryan and, later, the Christian World.

Architrave reliefs of the gate of stupa number three, in Sanchi, India. The three bars symbolize the three heavens. It is interesting that each "sky" is closed by a spiral solar symbolism. This image shows us. that in India the view of the spiral as a sacred symbol of the sun, brought by the Aryans from their ancestral home, was preserved, right up to the time of the wide spread of Buddhism. In India, there are labyrinths, very similar to the labyrinths of Ireland. Scandinavia and the Russian North. For example, such labyrinths can be seen in the state of Orissa, in the Nilgiri, in Tamil Nadu, in Madhya Pradesh. Surprisingly, there are labyrinths everywhere in Asia, on the territory of ancient kingdoms, one way or another gravitating towards Indian civilization from Afghanistan to Java and Sumatra. Amazingly, there are labyrinths in America too. And if in Asia labyrinths are undoubtedly part of the Vedic culture, assimilated by local tribes, then in relation to America we are facing an unsolved mystery. One can only cautiously assume an ancient Celtic trace. Indeed, in accordance with vague legends, the Celts, long before Columbus, mastered the way to America!

Author wonderful work“Pigeon Book” M. L. Seryakov notes that since the four was a numerical symbol of the Earth, the horizontal plane, and the world is divided into three parts vertically, then we have, among other things, a symbolic image of the universe. In Rus', this sign was especially common. It is also found in other places of the ancient Aryan ecumene: in Bulgaria, Dagestan, Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus.

"Babylon" on the railing in St. Sophia of Tsaregradskaya. (Photo by the author)

The plan of the sanctuary-labyrinth of the Khazar era, discovered and interpreted by A.T. Sinyuk and V. D. Berezutsky. Below: a brick from the Khazar city of Sarkel with a pattern of a labyrinth.

"Babylon" on a stone near the fortress wall of Izborsk. (Photo by the author)

North Gate of the Great Stupa Number One at Sanchi, Madhya Pradesh, India, / century B.C. Solar spirals, symbolizing the day and night luminaries, flank the three levels of the sky of the gods.

Already when this work was published in an abridged version in the journal "National Interests" in mid-2001, the author had a chance to get acquainted with a completely new and unique work by Roman Bagdasarov - the book "Swastika: a sacred symbol." Exploring the metaphysics of the swastika symbol, the author, of necessity, also comes to the topic of labyrinths. The most interesting thing in his work is that, starting from the other end, from the swastika, Roman Bagdasarov comes to the same conclusions regarding the sacred essence and origin of not only the swastika, but also the labyrinths of the North, which the author of this study came to. But, among other things, the description in the book of Bagdasarov of the sacred city of the Aryans in the Urals, known to modern science as Arkaim, led the author of this narrative to the conviction that the plan of this ancient city was not only a kind of labyrinth, but, most surprisingly, essentially repeated the structure "Babylons". Only instead of concentric squares we have three rings. Otherwise, the sacred drawing is identical to the classic square "Babylon".

The ancient Aryan settlement in the Southern Urals, named after the nearby mountain Arkaim, dates back to the 17th-16th centuries BC. Let us turn to the text of Bagdasarov's book: “The settlement had three lines of defensive structures and four entrances... The twisting “streets, radial lintels and passageways give Arkaim a clear resemblance to a swastika... The entrance was located at the end of the western section of the wall, where the wall and the moat turned sharply to the southeast. This passage coincided with the entrance to the tunnel, laid inside the defensive wall. The passage was in the form of a labyrinth. ...The wall of the citadel was surrounded by a ring street, and in order to get to the territory of the inner circle of the settlement, one had to go along its entire length. Only at the end of the street through a special gate could one get to the central square. There was no other way, so the winding route had not only defensive, but (as in the Trypillia culture) and ritual significance. Those entering and entering Arkaim constantly drew swastika-shaped routes. Although a number of functions of the town-planning scheme of Arkaim are read as a spiral and a swastika, in general, the settlement corresponds to a more complex figure of Indo-Aryan metaphysics - a mandala ... In Sanskrit, a mandala has the following meanings: circle, disk, ball, orbit, ring, circumference, wheel, ball, round bandage, circular formation of troops, district, territory, country, multitude, group, gathering, society, part of the Rigveda, plant species, a certain sacrifice ... The mandala combines the ideas of macro- and microcosm, the symbolism of an equal-ended cross, square, world tree. .. It is remarkable that the principle of the mandala is the general principle of building palaces, temples, megalithic structures for seemingly very different cultures in Asia, Europe, Central America... The possibility of the existence of defensive structures of this type is reinforced by the presence of a certain field tactics chakra-vyuga (Chakra-vyuha), described by the Mahabharata. In the chakra-blizzard, the army is lined up in a ring-shaped order, which the enemy is trying to destroy. When Arjuna's son Abhimanyu was in the womb of his mother Subhadra, Krishna, entertaining her, told how to overcome the obstacles of the chakra-blizzard. God came to the arrangement of the seventh ring, but seeing that Subhadra had dozed off, he decided to change the subject. This circumstance turned out to be fatal for Abhimanyu, who listened attentively to the story of Krishna, but did not wait for his end. During the battle with the Kauravas, Abhimanyu tried to capture the chakra-blizzard and died, reaching only the seventh ring. The story of Abhimanyu carries not only military, but also initiatory overtones. Passing through the swastika labyrinth of the chakra-blizzard was a spiritual test for the son of Arjuna. It is possible that it is connected with the ideas of initiation that the barriers blocking the entrance to the sanctuary or tomb are customarily decorated by different peoples with a spiral-shaped swastika pattern. Rectangular stone blocks with multidirectional spirals lie on the thresholds of the temple of El Tarxin (Malta Island, 2400-2300 BC) and the burial mound in New Grange (Ireland, 4-3 thousand BC). Passing between “whirlwinds” twisted in different directions, the soul gains access to a fixed axis around which the world revolves.

At the heart of the plan of the ancient city of the Aryans in the Urals, Arkaim, one can easily guess the version of the "labyrinth".

Drawing "swastika-yantra" - a "swastika" labyrinth depicting space. India, 18th century

Summing up what has been said, we should note that the ancient Aryans gave Arkaim not just one of the sacred configurations, but also consciously likened it, like their other settlements, to the center of the universe, reproducing that sacred archetype of human self-identification in relation to the macrocosm, which could only be born among the Aryans in the polar ancestral home ...

The scientist A. A. Miller considers the time of the appearance of a horseshoe-shaped labyrinth of a different shape to the Bronze Age, and the spiral labyrinth was attributed by him to the Eneolithic. This dating was also confirmed by rock paintings in Southern Sweden, attributed by their researcher Jan de Vries to the Bronze Age. Jan de Vries clearly connected the Swedish cave drawings with a solar cult. Exactly the same conclusion was reached by D. Eoghan, who studied megalithic burials in the Boyne Valley in Ireland. On one of the images, an instrument resembling a sundial was carved. In County Meath, similar images were found on megalithic stones dated to the time of the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, namely the 2nd millennium BC. According to D. Eoghan, the origin of these images can also be associated with the cult of the sun. The motif of the sun is one of the oldest subjects of primitive art.

Idol from Hephaestia, island of Lemnos, terracotta, early 7th century BC

The figure's attire is decorated with a spiral ornament.

For us, it is especially important that the spiral of the most ancient labyrinths is connected precisely with the worship of the sun by our ancient Aryan ancestors. We will reveal the reason for our confidence later. It should be noted that on one Paleolithic plaque made of mammoth bone, there is a dot image of a spiral labyrinth. Another amazing mystery is connected with spiral labyrinths. There is a hypothesis of English researchers that the locations of the cromlechs in Great Britain are characterized by an abundant release to the surface of some “telluric” (terrestrial) energy that is elusive with instruments. In Rollright, on one of the many cromlechs, folded in the form of a circle with a spiral inscribed in it, measurements of the magnetic field strength were carried out. It turned out that the stone circle seems to shield the Earth's magnetic field: inside the circle it is noticeably weaker. What is even more remarkable, in a spiral, on the contrary, the magnetic field is amplified. This spiral vortex makes seven turns and goes beyond the circle. Maybe the creators of the structure buried some magnetic minerals in it, arranging them in the form of a spiral. But this is only a hypothesis of the British.

Inventory of the catacomb archaeological culture of the ancient Aryans of the Black Sea region. Spiral ornament on the vessel.

Without a doubt, the spiral had a ritual significance. Many images of spirals are found on the stones of the cromlechs, although they are not actually in Rollright, but they are found in abundance in other places, not only on the stones that make up the groups of cromlechs, but also on flat boulders. Interesting results were also obtained by measurements of radioactivity carried out in Rollright and on another megalithic structure - the Moel-Ti-Uhaf stone circle in Wales. Separate sections of the sites occupied by cromlechs differ from the surrounding area in their radioactivity - it is either higher or lower than the background. Round-the-clock measurements of fluctuations in radioactivity revealed short-term, several minutes long, “flares” in Rollright, when radioactivity rises three times, and then drops back to normal!

Ancient Khorezm. Aral Sea. Kuzeligyr. An impression of a seal on clay from a palace building.

Upper Paleolithic of Eastern Europe. Labyrinth on an ancient plate.

Crucifixion from Sandegarda, Gotland. Medieval Irish cross. The six spiral swastikas represent the energies in the body of the Savior. Dublin. National Museum.

Bronze figurine of a deity on a wolf with a spiral solar rosette on the chest. Glyadenovskoye bone. Russian North.

Spiral labyrinths above the entrance to the Neolithic stone tomb of Newgrange in Ireland.

Celtic megalith with a "three-lobed" spiral.

If we talk about the typology of labyrinths in general, then scientists consider it reasonable to divide all the labyrinths known today into five subgroups. The first type is round-spiral labyrinths, or simply spiral ones. The second type is horseshoe-shaped, left- and right-handed labyrinths. The third group consists of bispiral labyrinths. The fourth type is concentric-circular. The fifth group includes rectangular labyrinths "Babylon", repeating, however, the pattern of round-oval stone labyrinths. There is another type of labyrinth, but it is represented by a single find so far. We are talking about a mosaic on the floor of the Roman palace in the Serbian Gamzigrad, the former Roman city of Romulian, named after the mother of Emperor Galerius, who, in fact, was born in this city. The mosaic labyrinth is an equilateral hexagon.

Speaking of ancient cultures that can be considered in the context of labyrinths, first of all, it is necessary to mention the archaeological cultural area of ​​the northern coast of Fennoscandia and the shores of the Barents and White Seas II - early I millennia BC. The association of the labyrinths with this cultural circle convinces us that there is no reason to associate it with the hypothetical Proto-Sami. For three millennia of the Severodvinsk Mesolithic, there is a continuity of cultures. The connection of these cultures with Solovki is obvious. The pottery of the Kolguevskaya-2 site is a kind of link between the Solovetsky culture of labyrinth builders and the monuments of the Severodvinsk basin dating back to the 4th-3rd millennium BC.

Materials from the Solovetsky sites have shown that a maritime connection between the mainland and the islands has always existed. All this suggests that the White Sea population in the III millennium BC. there was a developed navigation and a tradition of commercial hunting for sea animals. We cannot pass by the question of the rock carvings of the Russian North. The lower reaches of the Vyg River at its confluence with the White Sea are famous for numerous rock carvings. It has now been proven that these rock drawings are related to similar images in Sweden, only slightly older chronologically. There are many drawings related to the sea, sea fishing, hunting for sea animals, sea trips and battle scenes on the water. All images show the same type of ship with a high stem, decorated with an elk's head, just as can be seen on Bronze Age boats among the rock carvings in Sweden: with a ram-like keel protruding from below, with a decorated tiller at the stern.

The drawings show us two types of ships: large ships with a crew of up to 24 people and small ones, for a crew of two or three people. The frame of the ships was covered with the skins of marine animals. It was these sailors who, during their journey to Europe, could bring the memory of the ancestral home, which was transformed, for example, among the Celts, into a cycle of legends about the lost paradise, the “islands of the blessed”, about the lost country of Tula, the ancestral home of all Indo-Europeans. The memory of the sacred islands has been preserved among all peoples, among whom we find the culture of labyrinths created from stones, turf, in the form of images carved on the rocks.

The culture of developed navigation existed in the White Sea region in the III-II millennium BC, which exactly corresponds chronologically to the labyrinths of our North. Developed navigation once again convinces us that this ancient culture could not possibly have belonged to the Saami reindeer herders, nomads, as well as other Finno-Ugric peoples, forest hunters who did not know navigation in such a distant time. And of course, it would be useful here to recall the high culture of navigation among the Indo-Europeans: the Scandinavians, Greeks, Celts and, of course, the Pomor Slavs, which is especially important for us, given that we are talking about the White Sea and the traditions of navigation and maritime fishing in this region, which has an undoubted centuries-old successive connection.

Onega petroglyphs. Images on the Shishkinsky rocks and in Zalavruga.

So, we generally outlined the boundaries of the sacred ancestral home of the Aryans, ancient Hyperborea. But so far we can only talk about the dotted line of both this border and the link between the culture of labyrinths and the later Indo-Europeans who settled in the vast expanses of Eurasia. In order for the dotted line to become a bold line, new evidence is needed, certainly connected with historical Europeans, which will confirm our guess about the labyrinths as material monuments of the desired Aryan ancestral home in the Arctic. First, we must clearly imagine the ethnic situation in the north of Europe from primitive times to the early Middle Ages. For well-read people (especially with regard to historical literature), this does not seem to be difficult. After all, we know from school that the vast expanses from Scandinavia to the Trans-Urals were occupied by the Finno-Ugric tribes from time immemorial, and the Germans, Balts and Slavs came to the North very late. However, this axiom has too little in common with the rigorous data of a science untainted by politics.

It turns out that the Finnish languages ​​in the area of ​​the White Sea and the Baltic States are not original. They appeared with the first representatives of these tribes relatively late, hardly earlier than the first centuries of our era. This is also true for the whole of Eastern Europe as a whole, where our unfortunate historians with one chokh wrote off all the ancient archaeological cultures to the Finno-Ugric peoples and adorned their ignorance with scientific degrees. The Finnish philologist E. Satele, who loved his native Finns no less than our home-grown Ugric patriots, honestly dated the exit to the sea of ​​people who spoke Finno-Ugric languages ​​no earlier than the 7th century AD. This means that these tribes reached the Baltic and the White Sea when the Indo-Europeans lived here for more than a millennium. This ethnic paradigm of the North is fundamental in our further journey into the depths of centuries through the mysterious ancient cultures of the Russian North.

To determine the place of Solovki in the context of the cultural area of ​​the labyrinths, let us turn to the research works of N. N. Vinogradov, who in the 20s of the XX century studied the stone structures of Solovki, which suddenly turned from the “islands of the blessed” into the islands of death. Then the number of different stone structures of antiquity on Solovki reached five hundred units! Subsequently, the Arkhangelsk archaeologist A. A. Kuratov doubled this figure. Unfortunately, many structures have been forever lost to science since then. What was preserved for thousands of years, only slightly covering the stones with the noble patina of the Arctic - lichen and flowery moss, was swept away by the twentieth century of technological and social demonic possession.

On the shores of the White Sea, there are more than a third of all known labyrinths. The rest, up to eight dozen according to the most rough estimates, are scattered over a vast area - from the White Sea to the Isles of Scilly. They are known in southwestern England - at least three, in Sweden - 12 labyrinths, four in Norway, and about 50 in Finland, on the shores of the Baltic, the Gulf of Bothnia. They are also known on the islands of the North Atlantic. As you can see, the closer to the epicenter of the spread of this culture, to the Solovetsky archipelago, the more labyrinths. Our contemporary, historian, archaeologist and publicist A. L. Nikitin came closest to solving not only the riddle of labyrinths, but also the difficult question of the ethnicity of the builders of these unique stone structures. He said almost everything about the labyrinths, from "A" to ... Something prevented him from saying the most important thing. The alphabet of knowledge remained unfinished. Ideological prejudices, a conservative, if not inert, academic environment, the lack of a clear idea of ​​​​the Aryan ancestral home and ignorance of ancient Russian legends, where the North has always been considered the original Russian territory since the time of the legendary ancestors of Sloven and Rus, whose mighty power at the dawn of Slavic prehistory included lands White Sea to the Urals.

Things from the mound of the Vyatichi tribe from the vicinity of Zvenigorod in the 11th-12th centuries. The spiral pendant is interesting because such a design has analogies in Celtic art. We must exclude the borrowing of this drawing. There is an ancient common Indo-European tradition associated with the solar cult.

Nikitin wondered who could leave this culture, so widespread in the North, with labyrinths as a kind of calling cards. After all, a certain type of monument is associated with an equally certain people who left it, with one or another archaeological culture, represented by a set of stable and characteristic features. The vast distances and the absence of any finds near the labyrinths for a long time did not allow us to accept the only possible conclusion that stone structures in the form of labyrinths were built by one people of antiquity. A. L. Nikitin came to this conclusion, but instead of the obvious fact that we have before us the path of the ancient Aryans from the polar ancestral home to Northern Europe, surprisingly accurately marked by labyrinths, the scientist built a complex structure with artificially grown Proto-Sami, who used to speak some different language, but nevertheless, even then they were in a strange relationship with just the Sami. Then these mysterious labyrinth builders, who, unlike the Saami, did not drive deer, but preferred navigation, switched to the international Saami language of primitive diplomacy and suddenly disappeared, surprisingly for ordinary Saami.

Temporal rings of East Slavic tribes. The female temporal rings of the tribe of the northerners, number five, perfectly illustrate all the same views of the ancients on the spiral as a solar symbol.

If we discard the total political emigration to Mars, then the issue seems insoluble. Where did the masters of the European North go? Or did they deliberately forget their hobbies for sea travel and began to herd deer? Let's take into account that the pure Saami are a classic example of the Ural race. They are very short, have black coarse hair and a significant Mongoloid admixture. The oldest anthropological material of the Russian North, from Lake Lacha, for example, shows us the first inhabitants of this harsh region as tall people with pronounced features of the ancient Nordic Proto-Europeans with dolichocephaly, a long-headedness, indicative of this racial type. It is not clear why it was necessary to fence the garden with the Proto-Sami, if the aforementioned non-Proto-Sami have never been historically or archaeologically recorded either in Poland, or in Germany, or in England, or in Ireland. But there are labyrinths there, and not just as an archaeological curiosity, but as an element of a living folk tradition! Even people far from the problems of history, religion and traditional culture know the famous Hampton Court maze in England, described by Jerome K. Jerome in his wonderful book Three in One Boat, not counting the dog. Your answer is Sami and Proto-Sami. What, nothing to cover?! It's annoying when talented Russian people start playing other people's games. The result is always the same - where it was possible to build, conditionally, a supercomputer, relying on common sense and your talent, with the help of the humanitarian wing of non-Russian academic science and under its pressure, until recently, a powerful intellect clones Teletubbies and other proto-Sami.

N. K. Roerich. Sketch "The Great Sacrifice" for I. Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring". 1910 Seven mysterious northern elders sit near the labyrinth. It is more than appropriate to recall here that the ancient Indians called the constellation Ursa Major sacred to them - "Seven Wise Men".

Ireland. County Roscommon. Entrance to the Other World. Exactly the same entrances can be seen on Solovki, in particular, on the Big Zayatsky Island.

Route plan through the maze around the terraces of Glastonbury Tor.

A spiral labyrinth in a stone carving discovered near Tintagel, Cornwall.

Let's get back to the facts. Based on the calculations of geologists who have studied coastline fluctuations in the past, archaeologists believe that labyrinths appear in the III millennium BC. and they cease to be built already at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Apparently, it was during this time period that large-scale migrations of the Indo-European tribes of the North to Europe and Asia took place. And it was in Europe that the existence of labyrinths in folk culture has survived to our time. However, the Europeans did not seem to have retained a holistic understanding of the sacred meaning of the labyrinths, although fragments of the tradition brought to us by conservative folklore are very significantly moving us towards solving the problem of assigning these structures to our ancestors.

In England and Ireland, popular rumor considered labyrinths to be entrances to underground halls - sid. Elves and beautiful fairies dance on them in the moonlight. Next to the labyrinths, one can see original structures of three small slabs assembled in the form of arches-entrances to the dungeon. The author of these lines saw exactly the same construction on Bolshoy Zayatsky Island.

Together, these facts make it possible to connect labyrinths with the realm of the dead, with the realm of the first ancestors, with other existence in the afterlife or the enchanted world. In Britain, on the Cornish peninsula, in Tintagel there is a famous labyrinth, which local legends associate with the legendary King Arthur. Perhaps the mystery of the famous Stonehenge in Britain lies in the plane of the problem of the origin and sacred purpose of labyrinths. This is also true for the mysterious Tiunovsky sanctuary in the Vologda region. Both of these sacred objects have some barely perceptible connection with each other.

IN White Sea, on a small conglomerate of outlying islands Russia the largest number of labyrinths on Earth is concentrated. Despite the abundance of theories of their origin, archaeologists and historians still cannot agree on why and for what purpose they were created. labyrinth- this is one of the most mysterious symbols of the planet Earth - why did the idea of ​​a labyrinth simultaneously appear thousands of years ago on all inhabited continents of the world?

today word "maze" used to denote any intricate structure. However, the labyrinth has an important key characteristic. Unlike, for example, the structure of puzzles or mosaics, in which there is a choice of move and direction (multi-move), the labyrinth has only one uninterrupted move (single-move), which leads to the center.

Long history of the maze

Word "maze" goes back to the Greek word "Labrys" , denoting the famous double-edged ax of the Minoans from the island of Crete, and "intos" , What means "place" . So initially the labyrinth is "the house of a double-edged ax." So called Knossos palace complex on the island of Crete. According to Greek mythology, the Cretan king Minos commissioned the craftsman Daedalus to build a labyrinth for Minotaur- half bull, half man, whom the wife of Minos Pasiphae gave birth from a relationship with a bull. For some unknown reason, Daedalus and his son Icarus were also imprisoned in this labyrinth. Having built wings from wax and feathers, they were able to free themselves and flew away from their place of imprisonment. But young Icarus decided to get too close to the Sun. The wax in his wings melted, and he himself fell into the Icarian Sea and drowned. The legend of the Minotaur has long been considered a myth, until the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans did not find the remains of the Knossos labyrinth at the beginning of the 20th century.

Ancient mosaic depicting the labyrinth of Knossos and the Minotaur

Although there are different patterns of labyrinths throughout the history of mankind, such as the labyrinth of seven, eleven and twelve circles, in Greece and all over the Mediterranean only the labyrinth of seven circles was associated with these legends. Today, the Cretan labyrinth is called a one-way labyrinth, which is formed in seven concentric bends towards the center. It is surprising that the seven turns of the labyrinth repeat the course of the planet's movement. Mercury By starry sky. The question is, could the astronomer of antiquity record the course of Mekruriy and create a closed symbol on its basis? It is clear that there is no exact answer to this question. The first known use of the seven-circle labyrinth symbol was found on a clay tablet in the city's Mycenaean palace. Pylos, Greece. The palace itself was lost in a fire about in 1200 BC Only a clay tablet remained for study, which was baked in that fire.

The scheme of the labyrinth of seven circles

Although the labyrinth is strongly associated with the history and mythology of Greece, as a fact of culture, it appeared much earlier than the legend of Knossos and the Minotaur. 4000 years ago the famous ancient labyrinth was built among the pyramid complex Amenemhat III in Hawara (12th dynasty, 1844-1797 BC). The labyrinth connected twelve spacious chambers, which were connected by corridors, colonnades and shafts. The central burial chamber of the king's pyramid was securely hidden with the help of crossing passages and false doors sealed with stones.

However, the labyrinths Greece And Egypt- this is just the tip of the iceberg. Labyrinths are present in almost all world religious traditions. They have formed an integral part of many cultures and are found on every inhabited continent. Approximately at the same time as the Greek labyrinth, the Tohono Odham labyrinth, which is extremely identical to it, appeared in the traditional Papago Indian culture, symbolizing Iitoi - "Man in the Labyrinth". The same pattern has a prehistoric petroglyph on the river bank in Goa, as well as cave drawings of North India and dolmen petroglyphs in the mountains. Nilgiri. About 300 images of various labyrinths have been found at ancient archaeological sites around the world. Questions about how the same pattern could simultaneously appear in apparently unrelated cultures have not yet been answered.

Although the written history of the last 4000 years mentions labyrinths, the earliest of them are much older and date back to the Neolithic, from which rock paintings and stone structures remained throughout Europe, Scandinavia and Russia.

Labyrinths of the Big Zayatsky Island

The Solovetsky Islands (or Solovki) is an archipelago in White Sea at the entrance to Onega Bay, Russia. 35 labyrinths of the era were found here Neolithic. The locals gave them the name "babylon" . Their construction time is approx. 3000 BC The most interesting stone labyrinths Big Zayatsky Island is a group of 14 labyrinths located on an area of ​​0.4 km2. They are very well preserved and have been described in detail, but their function is still debated.

In addition to these labyrinths on the island found 850 stone ramparts, many of which were used as burial mounds. Also on the island there are solar symbols made of stones and placed in a closed circuit. It is believed that these ancient stone labyrinths are associated with spiritual practices and ancient beliefs and can symbolize the border between the material world and the world of spirits - the mythical haven of death.

labyrinths made of cobblestones placed on the ground. It is established that the cobblestones were collected nearby. The smallest maze has about 6 meters in diameter, the largest 25.4 meters. Rows of stones have a spiral shape, in some cases they are folded into two spirals. In this case, the pattern of the labyrinth is described as an interlacing of two snakes striving towards the center. The entrances to the labyrinths are predominantly located on the south side, and although there are five variants of the labyrinths, they all have only one entry / exit point. The labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island are located on the western side, while the eastern part of the island is occupied exclusively by stone ramparts. Although the labyrinths are overgrown with tough island vegetation, their shapes stand out clearly on the ground.

Stone labyrinth of the Big Zayatsky Island

Why were labyrinths built on the Big Zayatsky Island?

Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain the violent activity of the inhabitants of the Solovetsky Islands, who built stone labyrinths back in the Neolithic era.

In the 1970s The main hypothesis was the assumption N. Gurina that labyrinths served as traps for fish. This is supported by the fact that all the labyrinths of this area were built near the coast, and the water level 5000 years ago(and this is their approximate dating) was much higher. The fish swam into the labyrinth, and the fisherman simply collected it from the trap. However, this hypothesis may be refuted by the fact that in the world there are many labyrinths located at a distance from water bodies.

Researcher L. Ershov put forward another theory. Ershov believed that the lines of the labyrinths repeat the orbits of the Sun and the Moon, thus they were used as calendars. However, this is a moot point, as labyrinths vary in entrance location and orientation.

Today, in particular - in esoteric circles, the theory is popular that the labyrinth is an ancient symbol of integrity. It combines the shape of a circle and a spiral into an intricate path. It symbolizes the journey to the center of our spirit and the subsequent return to the real world. The passage through the labyrinth can be seen as an initiation for the awakening of knowledge. It is believed that the passage through the labyrinth contributes to the achievement of an altered state of consciousness and a change in the perception of time and space. Indeed, Vlad Abramov, who explored the labyrinths of the Bolshoy Zayatsky Island, described the surreal experiences he experienced while passing through the intricate passages of the labyrinth.

“Having stepped into the labyrinth and passed several times in a circle to the center, you exit through its entrance. After several passes, you forget exactly how many times you made them, and how many times you have left to go. Subjective time stops, but the clock shows that you have been walking through the maze for 15 minutes. It becomes difficult to think about something coherently; the path is narrow, and you must constantly watch your steps. The course of the labyrinth turns either to the right or to the left. And finally, the way out; and you are glad that little trip finished"

In addition to these theories, there are many others. Now the theory of Karl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter stands out especially. Its essence is that the construction of labyrinths is associated with religious beliefs. Prehistoric labyrinths most likely functioned as traps for evil spirits, set the pattern for ritual dances, and/or marked the boundary between this and the other world. The issue of using these labyrinths in the rituals of the passage of the souls of dead people to the afterlife is discussed. Archaeologist A.L. Nikitin suggests that the labyrinths, as mentioned in the legends, indicate the "entrances" and "exits" to the underworld, and they could open only to those who were given the "magic key" from their doors.

This assumption is caused by the widespread belief in the "three worlds" in prehistoric cultures, according to which our ancestors believed that the Universe is divided into the Lower World, where the souls of the dead fall, the Middle World, which includes physical plane existence, and the Higher World of stars, heavens and gods.

Until now, the remote northern islands of Russia attract travelers and scientists who want to solve their riddle and learn the meaning of labyrinths.

Translated from English by Maxim Sirenko

www.allrus.me/mystery-of-solovki-labyrinths/ - "The Mystery of the Solovetsky Labyrinths"

bit.ly/RRUgcc - Patterns that connect (Social Symbolism in Tribal Art)

An increasing number of serious scientists are inclined to think that the numerous megalithic monuments preserved on the territory of modern Karelia and created millennia ago are a coded ancient knowledge inherited from our distant ancestors. Traditions that arose in the depths of centuries and millennia were passed down from generation to generation, fixed in stone and ritual symbols, demonstrating the unity of man and higher cosmic forces.

"The cosmic-mystical encoding of spiral symbols and labyrinths is beyond doubt."
Valery Demin, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor

Among the archaeological monuments of a cult nature located on the territory of the North of Russia, apparently, there are none that, like stone labyrinths, would have aroused the keen interest of many researchers for about two hundred years. Stone labyrinths are structures with a diameter of five to thirty meters, built of small natural stones in a repeatedly twisting line that forms a spiral figure. They are known on the Kola Peninsula, the Solovetsky Islands, the White Sea coast of Karelia, as well as on a number of islands in the White Sea.

Many explanations have been offered regarding the functional purpose of the Solovetsky stone spirals: burial grounds, altars, mock-ups of fishing traps...

However, spiral images are found almost all over the world. It seems that the image of the spiral acts as a kind of code that was passed down from generation to generation, from people to people, regardless of cultural and religious differences. However, the knowledge contained in them was long ago - long lost, the key to deciphering is lost.

The spiral is one of the deepest symbols of the universe. The spiral acts as a single code of a single world, which is laid by Mother Nature in the foundation of all living and non-living things.

According to the views of the Moscow professor V.N. Volchenko and other Russian scientists, the basis of the universe is the so-called torsion (“twisted”) fields, which allow instantaneous distribution of any information. According to this theory, the Universe as a "Super-computer" forms a single biocomputer with the human brain, working, in simple terms, according to the principles of the same twisted spiral.

Classic "stone labyrinth" on Oleniy Island, White Sea

But if we find out about this at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, then how did our distant ancestors know about it thousands of years ago, who folded stone spirals, reminiscent of the modern classical shape of broadband transceiver antennas and used them as a single communication channel with the universe? Stone labyrinths have been revered since ancient times as pointers to the proximity of other spaces and dimensions.

In Rus', the northern labyrinths were called "Babylons". But why "Babylons"? Generations of stone labyrinth explorers have tried to answer this question. Why did the city of Babylon, mentioned in the Bible and discovered by archaeologists only at the very end of the 19th century, give the name to these strange structures?

In Celtic mythology, the island city of Avallon is known, inhabited by fairies, the island of the blessed, which was opened only to the elect. Therefore, most likely, the Pomeranian name of the stone labyrinth - "Babylon" - is a distorted Celtic word, transferred, but not meaningful, to Russian soil.

This is all the more surprising that the traditions and legends of the northern peoples associated stone spirals with the existence of fairy-tale peoples: "divine people", elves, gnomes and similar inhabitants " underworld". Moreover, as the historian and archaeologist A.L. Nikitin, it is labyrinths in legends and tales that are indicated as “entrances” and “exits” to the underground, otherworldly kingdom, opening only to those who know the magic key to this, figuratively speaking, secret door.

The following fact is very interesting: there is a local Karelian-Finnish myth about the so-called "wild people". These creatures live in mountains and caves, have some kind of power, reminiscent of electricity. They are small in stature, very beautiful and with a pleasant voice. "Divya people" - predictors. Only the elect can hear and heed them - people with a pure soul and thoughts.

In other words, at first glance, the "Divya people" most of all resemble gnomes or dwarfs. Of course, the descriptions of appearance do not match, but many other features coincide: mountain talents, the gift of providence, some actions, etc.

Dwarfs are given amazing speed, for which there is no space: in one leap they can be transferred from one mountain to another, even if there were several hours between the peaks of these mountains - today they are here, and tomorrow in another part of the world. They have the gift of supernatural wisdom and foresight: they know the future and everything that is done in the world. They have knowledge of languages ​​and understand the runes, they know the healing properties of plants and stones.

By the way, as well as mighty giants, dwarfs have occupied a worthy niche in the mythological tradition of both the Slavs and other peoples, in particular the Karelians and Finns. However, the thing is that in ancient Slavic mythology, dwarfs are creatures that live, rather, near a person. But in Finno-Ugric mythology, for example, dwarfs are more often residents of places that are hard to reach for a person.

The Scandinavian Eddas describe dwarfs as blacksmiths who transform into gods and personalities with titanic powers. These images are invariably characterized by arrogance, at times greed, often swagger and pride. According to the texts of the Edda, dwarfs are the flesh of the flesh of this world. They appeared immediately after the birth of the gods from the same original material as the earth, water and sky of the Universe - from the flesh of the god Ymir. When the young gods spread it with fertile lands, life was born there. Its first sprouts were dwarfs. They are the oldest population on earth. In the Edda, the first dwarfs are likened to larvae crawling out of decaying flesh into the light. Dwarfs, children of the earth, were at first absolutely faceless. However, the gods in the Upper World felt the birth of a new life and endowed the dwarfs with speech, wisdom and appearance. The gods left most of the dwarfs in the bowels of the young earth, crevices, caves and grottoes.

"Stone labyrinth" on the Big Solovetsky Island

Then the time of people had not yet come, and the dwarfs reigned supreme in the vast expanses of the earth. Children of the earth - they gratefully accepted her gifts, kept her secrets, fed on her wisdom. Earth and wisdom are often identified in myths.

Ritual ceremonies held inside and near these stone sanctuaries allowed the ancient peoples to make experiments with altered states of consciousness and explore the other world of spirits - a source of enlightenment and strength.

It is well known that many peoples of antiquity had special groups of people whose members possessed exceptional knowledge, inaccessible to the "uninitiated" and based on a deep understanding of the secret forces of Nature. The susceptibility to the hidden forces of Nature, strengthened by special education, allowed them to more boldly and more widely observe the world and, thereby, more faithfully serve their fellow tribesmen. These peoples also included the distant ancestors of the Finnish and Sami tribes that inhabited the territory of modern Karelia, who have long been famous for their sorcerers and shamans.

The writers of antiquity always confirmed the superiority of the northern peoples over others in the study of magic. It was believed that they mastered the art of illusion, knew how to cause storms, cover the earth with fog in order to confuse the ranks of the enemy troops or hide themselves from the eyes of the enemy. They mastered the art of body transformation. They were able to see at a great distance. They knew how to prophesy. It was they who, turning to their distant descendants, folded stone spirals in order to convey the foundations of their knowledge, since the ancient secret tradition stubbornly connected their extraordinary abilities with the symbolism and magic of the labyrinths, which personified natural forces and physical energy.

It is no coincidence that the image of a spiral among the northern peoples was also correlated with the image of a snake coiled in a dream, since the snake was considered a symbol of power for a long time. Traces of veneration of snakes are noted among the Saami and among the peoples of Karelia, in particular, among the Veps. The image of snakes from the Oleneostrovsky burial ground on Onega, as well as on the rocks of Lake Onega and the White Sea, belong to ancient magical and religious ideas and testify to their special reverence.

"Labyrinth" on the island of German Kuzov, White Sea

If such an assumption is correct, then one involuntarily has to be surprised at the profound knowledge that these people possessed millennia ago. They understood that man and the Earth are one. This is the basis of their wisdom. This is what was passed down to us, their distant descendants. But we neglect this knowledge.

Academician B.D. Grekov once said: "There may be grains of true truth in legends." In addition to chronicle history, all peoples also had a secret oral history, carefully guarded and also carefully passed down from generation to generation.

The mysteries associated with the study of "stone labyrinths" have been haunting researchers for many years now. The knowledge underlying their construction does not fit into the established opinion about the primitivism of the thinking of the northern peoples in the era of paganism. Yes! Their knowledge is, in many respects, intuitive. And why, in fact, intuitive knowledge is worse than analytical knowledge? After all, the knowledge itself, which has practical or spiritual value, is important, and not just the means to achieve it.

In 1999, a research group from St. Petersburg arrived on the islands of the Body of the White Sea, aiming to study the ancient labyrinths. The Kuzova Islands are very rich in monuments of this kind, which often surprise modern researchers, and even just tourists.

Toward evening, August 23, this group happened to see an "interesting" phenomenon. They were already finishing their work, when suddenly a strange opaque cloud emerged from the center of the “stone spiral”, which immediately turned into a light pillar. Before the observers had time to come to their senses, the "pillar" began to transform into ... "a human figure." The borders of the main body of this “person” were clearly visible and were brilliant green, and the inside of the “body” was filled with an orange glow like fog. The entire "body" was obviously opaque, observed for about 15 minutes at the same place, and measured up to two hundred meters in height. Then, the body again began to turn into a cloud and then again slowly descended to the center of the "spiral", where it disappeared.

On the same evening, the researchers of the ancient "artifacts" moved their camp, and in the morning they left first for the city of Kem, and from there to their native St. Petersburg! It was an escape from the horror they experienced from what they saw on the Bodies.

“At the very beginning of the winter of 2006, I visited my close relatives in Karelian city Belomorsk. - said Prokop Yuryev from Samara. - On weekends, we, our big friendly company, decided (on the recommendation of my relatives) to go see the old "stone labyrinths", some of which are located near the city. The snow had fallen a few days ago, and the track was fresh, not rumpled. After walking ten kilometers and already being close to the “destination”, we suddenly saw that a short man, thin and dark-haired, was walking slowly, as if walking, a little away from us. It's already a few seconds later, we realized that the concept of "low" absolutely does not correspond to what we saw: it was less than half a meter "dwarf". Intuitively, I fixed (in addition to growth, of course) something unusual in him. I (and not only me, but all of us, as I later realized) was surprised that he was without a hat and very lightly dressed. On rather deep snow, without skis, in light boots, at this time of the year, far from the city, in a dense forest!

We stopped and discussed what we saw for a long time, seeing it off with our eyes. He walked in the same direction where we were heading, and then disappeared behind a small hillock, where, in fact, the "labyrinths" were located. We followed in his footsteps, which suddenly ended abruptly almost in the very center of one of the "mazes". It was very visible in the snow.

Taken aback, we froze on the spot when we suddenly saw him right in front of us about a hundred meters away. It came out of nowhere, but it doesn't happen like that. He stood and looked straight at us, then took a step forward towards the "maze" and disappeared, right in front of our eyes. This, the last drop of mysticism, was enough for us, and we hastily went back to Belomorsk.

Then, after a year and a half, reading the literature on megaliths, I realized that we were faced with that other reality that is next to us, but somehow connected with the structures left to us by distant ancestors.