Икона в лесу. Религиозно-культурные перемены на польско-руськом средневековом пограничье в свете новых археологических находок
Icon in the Forest. Religious and Cultural Changes in the Polish-Rus’ Medieval Borderlands in the Light of New Archaeological Finds

Summary/Abstract: The authors examine a stray find of two Early Rus’ miniature copper alloy icons of the middle — second half of the 13th century found in a broad historical and cultural context in Eastern Poland. One of them is the central wing of a triptych with the image of the Mother of God Hodegetria and a Medusa Gorgon composition on the back. The other icon, also depicting the Hodegetria and the Child with an unfolded scroll, is extremely unique. This iconographic type is characteristic of Southern Italy. The icon itself can copy an unpreserved large-sized icon from Kyiv. The icons were hidden in an uninhabited space in forest no later than in the 14th century. This corresponds to the archaic rituals of concealing unused sacred objects due to their worn and torn state or changes in the cultural situation. The article provides an overview of sacred objects found in Central-Eastern Europe in a similar context — in forest or on trees. Water was another element intended to conceal sacred objects. The authors substantiate the hypothesis that the lead pilgrimage badges found in Western Europe in rivers or in a wet context were also deposited there in accordance with the archaic rituals of “floating on water” due to religious changes at the turn of the 15th—16th centuries. The concealment of icons in the forest was associated with the entry of the Rus’-Polish borderlands into the Kingdom of Poland and subsequent transformations of the local Orthodox culture.

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