Find of an Ancient Rus Lead Letter at Polonne in Khmelnytskyi Oblast

Abstract

In 2021, during the excavations at one of the settlements of the chronicle city Polonne, belonging to the Kyiv principality (modern Polonne city, Khmelnytskyi Oblast), in an object of the 12th century, a lead plate rolled into a scroll was found. As a result of the restoration, the plate was cleaned of dirt and oxides, unfolded and fixed. At the same time, Cyrillic texts were found on both sides of the plate. Further study of the texts made it possible to identify the find as a letter on a lead item, with two messages written on it in the Ancient Rus (Ancient Kyiv) language. The text of the message on the front side is read as “A letter from Khytr(?) to Mich and Gyrl(?): having gathered the cattle together, and without Mich lead to Kyiv”. On the back — “A letter to Mich: now the one who was engaged as a thresher is sick, and Dorozh wrote you, but didn’t give it to you, so go home”. The content of both letters was interpreted by the authors as an order from a certain entrepreneur to his employees to collect the cattle and transport it to Kyiv, with a note addressed to one of the employees, explaining the need for him to return back home to replace a sick worker who threshed grain. Paleographic analysis allows establishing that the texts on different sides of the charter were written by different people, and their dating can be determined within the second — third quarters of the 12th century. The letter from Polonne city is the fourth find among Ancient Rus non-parchment documents in Ukraine and the third one among the lead letters of the 12th — 13th centuries in Eastern Europe.