The Yankovskoye Idolatry
>Pagan crosses are quite common in Belarus’. Nevertheless, there is a place in village Yankovichy, where alongside the stone crosses is a monument, which can be related to a pre-pagan age. It is the Yankovskoye Idolatry. This monument can be dated approximately to the II millennium B. C.
The story about this interesting place told us a local inhabitant Oleg Milentey. He himself learnt this story from archeologists, who had had a research work at this particular spot of land.
Yankovskoye Idolatryis a stone in a shape of a female body as a grace symbol, which our ancestors worshipped. Most likely, they were entreating that way for rich harvesting, health and other necessary things, like we pray for today. Local inhabitants have been found Idolatries in their gardens. But being ignorant about the origin and the history of the find, they treated the Idolatries as usual but large stones. They broke them into pieces and took away from their gardens.
In epoch of general baptizing the idols had been ground to the shape of a cross. And after that people worshipped other symbols – the crosses. Alongside the idolatries sometimes pagan crosses with a token symbolizing the sun are found. And no one can hardly explain why and for what reason all these stones and idols appeared to be found at one and the same place together.
Yankovskoye Idolatry could be described as ”Polovets’ stone babas”. They are the eldest types of statues – flat in the body badly worked out in details of a figure or completely without any. Moreover, the absence of any features was the very specific characteristic of them. These were stone posts roughly ground with facial contours sometimes carved in the shape of a “heart” with rounded or pointed top like helmet. Faces were never portrayed or T-shaped eyebrows and nose eyes and mouth as oval deepenings had been drawn. Such a figures first time appeared in Polovets steppe approximately in the beginning of the XI century
To take into consideration:
Polovtsy, Polovtchany are not the inhabitants of the city of Polotsk as it could appear at first.
Polovtsy, Polovtchany (from European and Byzantine sources – Kumany, from Bashkirian sources – Kypsaky, from Kazakh sources - Kypshaky) are Turkic speaking nomadic nation, the western group of Kyptchaky people. At present days Kyptchaky people as a tribe are represented by Kazakhs of the Middle Zhuze. In the beginning of the XI century they moved from Zavolzh’e to steppes very close to the Black Sea. They forced out Petcheneg and Oguz tribes from their lands. Polovtsy placed these tribes under their command and crossed the Dnieper river and went close to the mouth of the Danube river. Conquering the lands they became the Hosts of the Great Steppe from the Danube river to the Irtysh river. This Great Steppe was mentioned in Historical scripts as Desht-y-Kyptchak Steppe (or from Russian sources the Polovets Steppe).
