From the History of Sacrifices: The Buried Secrets Archaeologists Find in Old Castles

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the folklore of many peoples, there are creepy stories about people walled up alive. Why did such a terrible death befell them? It was believed that some were punished for crimes, explicit or fictitious. Others were to remain forever the watchmen and guardians of the place in which they found their death. And everything could be considered just folk tales, if builders and archaeologists during the work would sometimes not come across such terrible finds.

From the history of sacrifices

But let's start in order, from the very beginning. The peoples of antiquity (and some practically until today) believed that the gods and spirits must be properly appeased if you want to receive something from them.

Everything is logical: people also prefer not to work for free. Likewise, perfume, if you want to get something meaningful and valuable, you have to pay accordingly. And what do spirits and gods prefer? And this depends on the "specialization" and the nature of the invisible entity.

Good spirits and gods will accept flowers, oil, incense, wine as a sacrifice, and more serious ones want serious gifts, often in the form of bloody sacrifices. Such serious invisible helpers have always been considered more powerful. Therefore, in order to appease them, they sacrificed the living: animals, and in the most serious cases, people.

In ancient times, human life was not considered particularly valuable, and not only among some wild tribes there, but also among the civilized peoples of Europe themselves. Fairy tales and legends reflect harsh realities long gone. Remember the fairy tale about Thumb Boy? In a hungry year, the family simply left the children in the forest, there is nothing to feed.

There is a Belarusian legend that the feeble old people were supposed to be taken to the forest to die. The classic of Belarusian literature V. Korotkevich wrote about this in his literary tale. Jack London has a story on the same topic, how the Indians went to more favorable places, leaving the elderly.

The time was like that, they got rid of extra mouths without regret. Therefore, in order to ask for the tribe / people for harvest, prosperity or deliverance from danger, people were sacrificed. Much has been written about the Aztecs, who massacred captives to please their sun god.

But not only the Indians were different. And not only then. One of the tribes of India, lost in the jungle, practiced a similar custom back in the 20th century. They took a child, someone else, stole or bought - it doesn't matter. The child was raised for several years without denying anything. And then, on the right day, they sacrificed in the fields, and in the most brutal way.

It was believed that the more the victim is tormented, the better the harvest and the more favorable the spirits will be. So, as we can see, the custom of sacrifice was everywhere and even quite recently. Over time, morals nevertheless softened and people began to be replaced by animals. Especially valuable. By the way, everyone remembers the fairy tale about sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka.

But they hardly thought about the origins of the tale. According to one version, brother Ivanushka is a substitute victim. Often, in necessary cases, human sacrifices were replaced by a horse or a cow. These were very valuable animals in antiquity, they were few, they were taken care of.

And they sacrificed only as a last resort, for example, at the funeral of princes. Or in the construction of critical buildings. In Europe, by the way, skeletons of horses are found…. under the old churches! Horse bone charms were generally valuable.

Horse skulls were hung over Slavic dwellings. It is unlikely that the horses were specially killed for this, rather, they took already "ready-made" ones. But they also killed, in the most crucial moments. As a sacrifice in the construction of buildings, bridges, etc. used pigs, roosters.

Sometimes they were cut, and sometimes they were buried alive. Apparently, it was believed that in this way they would better guard the building entrusted to them. And the local spirits will be happy and will not harm. Apparently, the logic of the ancient builders was as follows.

Golshany castle in Belarus

And so we finally got to the victims of capital construction. Judging by the legends, human sacrifices were more often brought not "just in case", although this could have happened, but when the construction did not go well. Since construction is not going on, it means that the spirits are angry, people reasoned. And they must be appeased with a suitable victim.

A similar legend exists about an ancient castle in Golshany, Belarus. Once the owner of the castle ordered to build a tower. But no matter how hard the workers tried, the walls were constantly crumbling. The prince hastened the construction and began to get angry, and the prince's anger in those days, you understand, is not a joke.

Then they decided to make a sacrifice, they decided that it would be the first one who comes to the construction site in the morning. The young wife of one of the workers came running first. I wanted to quickly bring breakfast to my beloved husband … The tower was completed and stood until our time. Over the past centuries, the castle was badly damaged, many parts were still intact.

In the 90s, the famous researcher of paranormal phenomena V. Chernobrov visited Golshany, about which he wrote in his book. And I learned that shortly before his arrival, restorers had found human bones in the wall of the tower. They were solemnly buried at the local cemetery. And the wall of the tower began to crumble …

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