Archaeology
British WW2 Hurricanes found in Ukrainian forest
The remains of 8 WW2 British Hurricane fighter planes have been found buried in a forest south of Kiev.
The Hurricane is a single-seat aircraft used by the Royal Air Force during WW2, inflicting 60% of the losses sustained by the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain campaign.
The aircraft was built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd with the first prototype, Hurricane K5083, performing its maiden flight on the 6th of November in 1935. Production of the Hurricane commenced in 1936 under the supervision of the Air Ministry, and it was officially deployed in squadron service by late 1937.
One of the primary factors contributing to the aircraft’s popularity was its comparatively straightforward design and manufacturing process. The Hurricane proved to be more affordable than the Supermarine Spitfire, requiring 10,300 man hours for each unit produced, whereas the Spitfire demanded 15,200 hours.
Overall, some 14,487 Hurricanes and Sea Hurricanes were produced in England and Canada during the lead up and duration or WW2.
As part of the Allied support for the USSR under the so-called Lend Lease Scheme, Hurricanes were sent to the Soviet Union following Operation Barbarossa, an invasion of Soviet territory by German and Axis forces.
Around 3,000 Hurricanes were sent to the USSR between 1941 and 1944 to support the war effort, but following the conclusion of WW2, most of the remaining aircraft were deliberately broken up and buried to avoid paying back the allies under the terms of the Lend Lease Scheme.
The 8 Hurricanes were discovered by metal detectorists while searching for an unexploded bomb from the current war between Ukraine and Russia. This led to the National Aviation Museum of Ukraine to conduct an ongoing excavation to recover the aircraft, which appear to have been stripped of their instruments, radios, machine guns and any useful scrap metal during the 1940’s.
Valerii Romanenko, from the National Aviation Museum of Ukraine told the BBC:
“The Hurricane is a symbol of British assistance during the years of WW2, just as we are very appreciative of British assistance nowadays.”
“In 1941 Britain was the first who supplied fighter aircraft to the Soviet Union in mass scale. Now the UK is the first country which gives Storm Shadow cruise missiles to our armed forces,” added Romanenko.
Header Image – Hurricane Mk.IIB of No. 81 Squadron RAF in Russia during WW2 – Public Domain
Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences have been excavating a burial ground associated with the Finnic Muromians.
The Finnic Muromians were groups of settlers that lived within the vicinity of the Volga and Oka rivers. They spoke Muromian, an Uralic language that became extinct following their assimilation by the Slavs.
The burial ground, which dates from the early 10th century AD, was discovered on the eastern bank of the Oka river, located in the Nizhny Novgorod Region of Russia.
A total of seventeen burial pits have been identified, nine of which have been severely damaged through looting.
The surviving 8 burials contain the remains of four children, two women, and two men.
The men were accompanied with an ornate collection of grave goods, including arrowheads, knives, bronze bracelets, iron plates, a bronze buckle, and a whetstone.
At the bottom of one of the pits is a heavily corroded axe, along with a flint that has traces of iron-coated embossed leather and textile threads.
The burials containing women were also accompanied with high status funerary goods, such as a necklace of red-brown prismatic and dark blue berry-shaped beads of Byzantine origin, signet ring-shaped pendants, plate bracelets, a bronze spiral, and a silver ring.
Traces of wood within the pit fillings suggest that they originally contained a wooden structure, similar to a log house made of thin beams and covered with birch bark.
According to the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The culmination of the discoveries at the site were two clay vessels, testifying to direct and close contacts between the right-bank Muromians and the Old Russian population.”
Header Image Credit : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Sources : Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt are currently excavating the site of a former gallows in Quedlinburg, Germany.
Gallows are usually wooden structures made of two vertical posts, a horizontal crossbeam, and a hanging noose. They have been used for executing criminals by hanging, a prevalent form of capital punishment in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Archaeologists are currently excavating a gallows site on Galgenberg, or ‘Gallows Hill,’ which was used for public executions by the courts in Quedlinburg from 1662 to 1809.
Excavations have revealed complete and partial burials in the area, along with bone pits containing multiple bundled burials, likely the result of mass executions carried out in a short period.
Image Credit : LDA
According to the State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt, “these discoveries provide unique insights into penal practices from the Middle Ages and early modern times.”
A burial unrelated to the gallows has also been unearthed, featuring a wooden coffin containing the skeletal remains of an individual buried with a rosary chain.
Archaeologists propose that the burial’s characteristics suggest that the individual was likely a suicide victim, denied burial in consecrated ground so was placed in the cemetery near the gallows.
Also discovered is a so-called ‘revenant grave’, where the skeletal remains of a man was found placed on his back with several large stones placed across his chest.
According to the researchers, the stones were likely placed to prevent the individual from rising as a revenant, which are described as animated corpses in the verbal traditions and lore of many European ethnic groups.
In medieval times, those inflicted with the revenant condition were generally suicide victims, witches, corpses possessed by a malevolent spirit, or the victim of a vampiric attack.
Header Image Credit : LDA
Sources : State Office for Monument Preservation and Archaeology of Saxony-Anhalt
This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily
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