The region beyond the Dnipro rapids, with the world’s best fertile soil, gentle sun, and an advantageous geographic position, has been populated to a greater or lesser extent from time immemorial. This has been confirmed by numerous archeological discoveries: our forebears would settle on the banks of the Dnipro, Konka, Molochna, and some small steppe rivers then full of water. Some of the settlements discovered date back about 40,000 years to the Upper Paleolithic, like, for example, one near the modern village of Petrosvystunove. In the severe steppe conditions, our ancestors learned to raise cereals, were the first in the world to domesticate the horse, invented the wheel, knew how to melt and mold iron and bronze to make weapons and everyday items.
The high level of material culture in our region has always been inseparably linked with and conditioned by a high level of spiritual culture. We find the perfection of the gold and silver art objects found in the burial mounds of Scythian kings striking. Such valuable gifts were never left in older Aryan-epoch mounds, but the work of those exploring the latter is still rewarded generously.
Well-known Kyiv archeologist and our compatriot Yuri Shylov has convincingly proven on the basis of the excavations of Bronze Age mounds (4000-5000 years ago) in our region, a genetic link of that culture with the culture of Indo-Aryans. He says in his books Gates of Immortality, Aryan Paths, and scholarly articles that a system of shrines-cum-observatories had been set up in that epoch along the whole Azov and northern Black Sea coasts, which played a tremendous role in controlling the life rhythm of the Aryan, that is, our ancient society.
Time and ignorance have not spared these creations of human spirit. Many of our Stonehenges were either destroyed or buried under sediments. But quite rarely our inquisitive and persistent people are lucky.
The archeological season of last year’s summer brought on a sensational find. Young Zaporizhzhia-based archeologist Maksym Ostapenko, working on the territory of the Khortytsia National Preserve, on a hill in the legendary island’s northeast, dug up and studied a Bronze Age cult structure hidden under a meter-deep layer of sand. The excavations were continued last summer. Another smaller structure was unearthed near the one already dug up. In fact, archeologists have known about its existence since 1993, but exploration was repeatedly postponed due to lack of funds. Also found were some elements that complemented last year’s find. It became clear that a new cult complex, of a kind never seen in our region, had been discovered. What is it in fact?
In the center of the excavated structure there is a circular flat-granite-paved ground about two meters in diameter. Two stones, resembling human figures, stand on the sides of this ground, like watchmen. The central ground is surrounded by a 12 meter diameter ring. The ring is paved with granite boulders. There is an opening, perhaps the entrance, in the northeast side. There also is another stone-paved ground, three meters in diameter, on the ring itself, near the southern exit. Placed under the boulders in special holes were ritual vessels, such as pitchers, censors, etc. Ochre and green finely-cut rubble were widely used during ritual ceremonies. Five stalk-shaped granite boulders are installed along the perimeter of this ground. One of these stones, with a depression in its upper part, is kind of a sighting device. If you draw a line from the sight through the central ground to the entrance and further onto three granite pillars standing outside the circle at a certain distance from each other, this line will show a horizon point close to the point of sunrise during the summer solstice.
Perhaps cult performers and Brahman priestesses waited, without closing their eyes, in the long summer nights for Surya, the sun god, to rise from behind the horizon just at that point. This meant the arrival of summer and of Ritn, one of the four fundamental holidays of the endlessly repeated annual cycle. This is the festival of nature’s young blossom, akin to St. John the Baptist’s Day. It is probably through the outer ring entrance that Surya comes into the shrine that symbolizes the home both as a place to live in and the universe.
Ten meters northeast from the entrance, outside the stone ring, there is another cult structure of a smaller size. These are two overlapping stone rings, each being eight meters in diameter. By its outlines, the structure resembles the well-known wedding emblem, but huge. Researchers think the rings were laid in different times. The two granite boulders installed on the periphery of one of the rings point in a direction close to the west- east line, i.e., where the sun rises on the day of equinox. A jug was found under these rings, bearing a drawing which Mr. Ostapenko believes may be an ancient calendar.
Both structures seem to constitute a single sanctuary-cum-observatory. It catered to the Khortytsia Island population of the time. It functioned actively and uninterruptedly from the mid-third millennium BC to the first AD. A reinforced settlement was situated at that time close by on the Isle of Lesser Khortytsia, in its modern part known as the Isle of Baida. There were also other settlements at the time both on Khortytsia and on both Dnipro banks.
A similar sanctuary had been dug up in Kichkas before the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station reservoir was filled with water, as well as on the Lesser Khortytsia in the area of today’s granite quarry.
Who then was the shrine dedicated to? Judging by a few egg-shaped stones found, this might have been the sanctuary of the warrior god, Indra the Serpent-Slayer, whose name in fact means egg. The cult of Indra, the patron of Aryans and the military caste, later transformed into the cult of Slavic Perun (“Indra relinquished power to Perun”). In our fairy tales about Kyrylo Kozhumiaka (the Tanner), Kotyhoroshko (Rolling-pea), and others, we clearly hear the echoes of Indian myths about the battle between Indra and Serpent Vritra (Gate-Keeper) who incarnates chaos, and the victory of the former, which means the beginning of an orderly cosmos. The heroes of our fairy tales fight, as Indra does, against the Serpent and defeat him.
Experts, including the organizing director of the Zaporizhzhia branch of the Cossack Research Institute A. Sokulsky, assess the newly-found shrine as a monument of European importance.
The shrine has now been restored after excavation. But what causes our concern is the fact that the monument is not being guarded; it is defenseless against vandals, unfortunately so numerous in Zaporizhzhia. It is they who set several fires to the woods on the island and on the Dnipro’s slopes in last summer’s July heat, which burned out the remnants of steppe and riverside greenery. The monument should be turned into a museum with conducted excursions. For, although the sanctuary was discovered recently, it is being visited by unguided excursionists and groups of schoolchildren. The monument is arousing everlasting interest.
We can only imagine the way our ancestors revered their sanctuary and guarded their spiritual and material world. I think it no accidental that this sacred place revealed itself to us, the descendants, on the borderline of epochs, and at the time of our making a choice. Nor is it accidental that young oaks have sprouted and are growing by themselves in the shade of the acacias around the shrine, the holy trees of Perun-Indra, patron of warriors.







