Novgorod Archaeologists Discovered Prison dated 11 Century

The image of one of the towers in Novgorod Veliky Kremlin is taken from wikipedia by Russian telephone translator.

Archaeologists have discovered a prison in Novgorod Veliky, which was functioning approximately in the XI-century, said a researcher at the Institute of Archeology, Ph.D. in History Oleg Oleinikov.

According to his words, this prison could easily be claimed as the oldest place of imprisonment for noble people. "The prison is a deep outgoing log construction of the size of three to three meters. In fact, we haven't seen a log construction of the 20 crowns like that before, even in Kiev where the excavations were conducted. We found this prison in late May 2008, but we could not find out its purpose. But when at the bottom of the log construction we found two shops and a place serving as a toilet, it became obvious that here was a cell for imprisonment, " said O. Oleynikov.

He added that this idea was supported by many specialists in this field. The head of excavation suggested that such punishments were subjected to negligent senior ranks. As for the penalty for ordinary people — it was much simplier — twigs or execution. (according to a Russian certified translation of documents)

"Today we disassemble this log construction and we are going to send it to our research institute and for a conservation. When there is already such a unique finding, it will be easier to build a context for further studies, and perhaps we will be able to find a hint in old texts pointing at some events or facts connected with this prison, but it is all in the future.

Excavations around Desyatinny monastery in the historic part of Novgorod the Great began in the middle of March and will be continued till the end of this year. So hopefully we will see some more interesting news from Novgorod Veliky, said one of the Russian translation service representatives for news and media.