Kievan Princess Olga, consort of Igor, was dowager regent before Svyatoslav her son came of age, and later on, during his dashing military campaigns. She raided Luga, Pskov and some other principalities northeast of Kiev in the mid-10th century. The amazon-and Russia's first Christian ruler-left a crack garrison in the Lubytino fortress while withdrawing her troops. Now, its excavations have unearthed two battleaxe blades, a stock of knives, glass beads and an utterly unconventional bronze buckle from a man's waist-belt. Numerous potsherds are assumed to belong to vessels mediaeval Russian women were making by hand without potter's wheels.
It was hard to expect ample finds on the site, complains Vladimir Konetsky, assistant professor of the Yaroslav the Wise State University, and excavations supervisor. "The settlement was abandoned a mere twenty years-thirty, at the longest, after it emerged, so its rubbish layer is extremely thin. What we are now unearthing was discarded or lost articles."
It is hard, however, to make whatever forecasts when we deal with sites of that kind, he said to newsmen.
"The Lubytino fortress is one of the sites which may prove vacant or, just as probably, may bring sensational finds," he remarked.
Lubytino excavations started six years ago. This season, they took start on July 3 and will be wound up quite soon-presumably, July 27.
The excavated site has made roughly 400 square meters for today. A major part of the fortress has been thoroughly studied-in particular, the rampart and a part of living quarters.
The works will resume next summer.
