Стаття присвячена всебічному аналізу поховального обряду роменської культури та окремих
його елементів.
The study of the funeral rite of the Eastern Slavs
and the dynamics of its development is important for
the clarification of the religious, state-creating, ethnocultural
and social processes of the Old Rus formation.
In the paper the author makes a new attempt of the
comprehensive analysis of the burial sites of chronicle
Severians who are identified with the bearers of Romenska
archaeological culture. For this purpose, the
most complete and reliable catalogue of these sites included
142 items has been created.
Statistical calculations show at the main part of the
Dnieper Left Bank in the 9th—10th centuries the dominance
of cremation rites away from the burial, placing
the urn in the upper levels of the mound. Burials of
this type are at least 82 % of Romenska culture cremations.
They are reflected in literary sources. Burials at
the level of the horizon and in small holes should be
considered only as a few deviations from the classical
Romenski rite. Burials of these types are characterized
by such specific elements as circular wooden fences
and ritual hearths, and most of them do not contain
the urns. Differences in the funeral rites of the Dnieper
Left Bank can be explained by the reasons of both ethnographic
and chronological nature.
In the second half of the 10th century in the Severians
area a few cremations are recorded at the places
of burial. No Romenska culture pottery or ornaments
were found in any of these complexes: they all contained
exclusively the Old Rus materials. There is
no doubt that the rite of cremation at the place was
brought to the Dnieper Left Bank by settlers from the
Middle Dnieper together with the establishment of the
Kyiv Princes power.
Radical changes in the Romenski funeral rite occur in
the late 10th — early 11th centuries. The rite of inhumation
at the level of the horizon becomes dominant, less
often in the mound pits. Although a number of scholars
link these changes to the socio-economic changes in society
the author considers it possible to explain them
only by the total Christianization of the newly acquired
territories by Kyiv. It is likely that the cremation of the
dead was strictly forbidden by the church.
