Zhalniks (sepulcrums).

Subject / Relics
Zhalniks (sepulcrums), burial places of the rural population of the Novgorod land of the 12th -15th centuries. On the Leningrad Oblast territory there are known zones of the Old Russian farming colonization: the Luga-Oredezh region, the Izhora Hills, the north-eastern Chud Lake region, southern outskirts of the Ladoga Lake region. Zhalniks are the earth graves of round, oval and quadrangular shape with surface stone facing or marked with single-stood boulders, stone-steles. They were gradually changed Old Russian barrows. So-called "Kurgans-zhalniks", whose mounds were not higher then the circle of boulders and grave dimensions, appeared in the 12th- early 13th centuries. As far as deepening the under-kurgan pits, mounds vanished. Stone crosses, placed at the head of the grave, appeared in the early 14th century. Zhalnik graves are located at the periphery of mounds' necropolis and on free plots between mounds, rarely they form single cemetery. The graves are presented with single earth burials and collective family graves with several burials, fences of that are collected in the united system. The appearance of "Zhalnik rows" up to fourty metres long, which include up to several tens of the burieds, is likely connected with epidemics of the 14th-15th centuries. The funeral equipment is presented with not numerous jewelleries, ceramics. Burials in zhalniks ("Kolomishchi") were practice in the outskirts Chud pogosts right up to the 16th century. Plotkin, Konstantin Moiseyevich
Topographical landmarks/Izhora Hills, the
Topographical landmarks/Luga-Oredezh Region
Topographical landmarks/Prichudye North-eastern
Topographical landmarks/Priladozhye
Репников Н.И. Жальники Новгородской земли // Известия Гос. Академии истории материальной культуры. Т. IX. Вып. 5. Л., 1931
Спицын А.А. Сопки и жальники // Записки Русского Археологического Общества. Т. XI. Вып. 1-2. СПб., 1899, С. 149-154
Лапшин В.А. Археологическая карта Ленинградской области. Ч. 1-2. Л.; СПб. 1990-1995, С. 149-154
Stone Crosses
Zhalniks (sepulcrums).