384:'. This is followed by a highly original call following along the lines of 'leave your villages and homes', with dozens of phrases starting with 'leave your' and listing a great number of things to leave, all starting with a Slavic prefix 'raz-': разлады, раздоры, расклады, развозы, распловы, разлогы, разлеты, размеры, размолвы, and so on (troubles, strifes, positions, moving around, sailing, flying, sizes, disagreements, etc.). This highly original sequence leads Zaliznyak to believe that the text was originally composed in Church Slavonic, as it is hard to imagine that translation from a foreign language could follow such a neat Slavic pattern.
20:
312:
such, the stylus traces form a constant mesh of lines across the entire surface. To complicate the process, they are also all written by a single hand, making handwriting analysis impossible. As such, Zaliznyak does not call the process 'reading'; instead, he calls it 'reconstruction'. Instead of asking himself the question, 'what's written on this line', Zaliznyak approaches the problem as 'is a phrase A or a word B possible among everything written in this sector'.
127:
351:. Often, the position where an error or deviation from Church Slavonic is possible, a correct symbol or symbols will also be present alongside an erroneous one, in which case Zaliznyak always assumes the original text was correctly written. In some cases, such assumptions will of course be incorrect. These multiple possibilities may also be the original author's correcting himself by erasing a mistake with his stylus and writing in a correct symbol.
316:
moves some distance to the side and begins identifying symbols at the next position. After several positions are discerned in that way, most letter combinations are discarded as senseless jumble, and possibly meaningful words are identified. Zaliznyak then moves to the next position and attempts to locate subsequent symbols that would complete the word or a sentence. As the text, as was typical at the time, is written with
360:
304:
407:'church of St. Alexander', according to Zaliznyak, does not mean a physical church building, but rather a church in the sense of teachings or doctrine. As there were no monasteries anywhere in Rus during the time these texts were written, Zaliznyak believes that Isaakiy was taught outside of Rus, and became a monk elsewhere. He was likely a witness to the
522:. After the ‘official’ church had prevailed, the sect’s texts were no longer copied and most traces of the existence of this heresy were erased. An especially symptomatic example of the scribe’s attitude to the ‘official’ church is the following excerpt from the “Spiritual Instruction from the Father and the Mother to the Son”:
441:, without any direct references to any events there. Zaliznyak believes that Laodicea was a sort of a secret word among the Bogomils, which identified a Bogomil teaching to other believers, without making anything apparent to outsiders. In this context, the strange title of a schismatic work written 500 years later by a
315:
The reconstruction is therefore done letter by letter, starting from an arbitrary position, usually somewhere at the top of a 'page'. After analyzing a meshwork of scratches and identifying some of the letters in a given spot (which can realistically number hundreds or even thousands), Zaliznyak then
276:
of the tablets presented unique challenges, as the usual preservation method for wood would have destroyed the wax layer, and vice versa. The method eventually decided on called for careful separation of the wax layer, and preserving each material separately. The newly exposed wood under the removed
379:
origins (birth)'. The text contains a highly unorthodox prayer, reading 'we pray to thee father
Alexander, forgive us our sins by your will and give us salvation and the food of paradise, amen'. In it, this Alexander therefore assumes powers usually reserved to God alone. The prayer is followed by
327:
Another specific of the texts is that many of them have been written multiple times, for reasons that can only be guessed at. Due to the previous copy being erased before a new copy is made, each repetition is written somewhat shifted compared to the previous copy. It is unknown whether the copies
311:
According to
Zaliznyak, reading the concealed texts in the scratches is a unique challenge unlike anything attempted by any research team previously. The very compact surface of the four writing surfaces contains traces of thousands of texts, estimated to have been written over several decades. As
161:
in the soil. The tablets were 19 x 15 x 1 cm, and they have a 15 x 11.5 cm indentation filled with wax. Two of the tablets have one wax layer and one blank wooden side, and a third tablet has two wax sides. The boards have round holes at one edge, through which wooden pegs were inserted,
406:
Zaliznyak therefore postulates that the writer was this monk
Isaakiy, who followed a previously unknown schismatic teaching of a self-proclaimed prophet Alexander, an Armenian by birth, and that Alexander himself was based in Thracia, and Isaakiy was sent to spread Alexander's word in Suzdal. The
395:
Finally, another text that
Zaliznyak calls “Spiritual Instruction from the Father and the Mother to the Son” contains the following note “Въ лѣто ҂ѕ҃ф҃з҃ азъ мънихъ исаакии поставленъ попомъ въ соужъдали въ цръкъве свѧтаго александра арменина…” (“In 6507 I, monk Isaac, was posted as a priest in
323:
After careful examination of each position, Zaliznyak creates symbol chains that continue to grow in size. The search often branches off into false leads, where at a certain symbol the chains switch off to a different text fragment. Sometimes these false branches are identified after only a few
343:
cooperated with
Zaliznyak on some portions of the reconstruction, where Zaliznyak identified a portion of the chain and passed it on to Vallotton, with both of them then continuing to independently reconstruct the text. In the experiment, both Vallotton and Zaliznyak ended up with completely
485:
the tetralogy “From
Paganism to Christ” (title from Zaliznyak): four so far unknown texts titled “Moses’ Law" (Russian “Закон Моисеев”), “The Unstrengthening and the Unpeacing” (“Размаряющие и размиряющие”), “Archangel Gabriel” (“Архангел Гавриил”), and “Jesus Christ’s Law” (“Закон Иисуса
387:
A subsequent concealed text contains the following passage: 'The world is a town in which live the
Armenians and the Africans and the Thracians and the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks'. Zaliznyak believes that an earlier allusion to Alexander, the Areopagite of
146:, covering nearly 6,000 square meters (64,500 square feet). The area excavated housed affluent mansions and a large 1,200 square meter (13,000 sq ft) communal building housed a court house and a Novgorod city treasury. The vast majority of text found in Novgorod were
403:“Spiritual Instruction from the Father and the Mother to the Son” continues onto increasingly more gloomy analysis of the state of the world, showing that the writer identifies with people excluded from the official church for believing unorthodox teachings.
477:
a multitude of examples of the alphabet, in a short version (а б в г д е ж ѕ з и ї к л м н о п р с т оу ф х ц ч ш щ ѿ) and a full version (а б в г д е ж ѕ з и ї к л м н о п р с т оу ф х ц ч ш щ ѿ ъ ѣ ѫ ѭ ю ꙗ ѧ ѿ) as well as with an enumeration of the
292:, has taken tremendous effort to reconstruct so far only a small portion of the texts preceding the basic text. The main difficulty with this task is the fact that the feeble traces of dozens of thousands of letters left by the
97:
consisting of three bound wooden tablets containing four pages filled with wax, on which its former owner wrote down dozens, probably hundreds of texts during two or three decades, each time wiping out the preceding text.
113:
and from the text itself (where the year 999 occurs several times), the wax codex was used in the first quarter of the 11th century, and maybe even in the last years of the 10th century. It is therefore older than the
335:. Only small portions of Zaliznyak's texts have been peer-reviewed to this time, as no research team came forward that was willing to learn and repeat the process over the length of a large text. Linguist
380:
prophecies by the same
Alexander, who then calls for people to 'leave your villages and homes' and to walk the earth, spreading Alexander's message. Alexander then says 'whoever listens to me, listens to
264:
is used; before the codex discovery, the monoyeric system was considered to have been a late invention, with the dualyeric system being the original; the discovery proved that the reverse was the case.
62:
33:
638:
296:, often hardly discernible from the natural shading of the soft lime wood, have been superimposed on each other, producing an impenetrable labyrinth of lines (Zaliznyak speaks of a “hyper-
220:
and could be examined at once. The
Psalter translation exhibits a somewhat different translatory tradition than the Slavonic translations of the Psalter known so far (especially the
324:
symbols, but sometimes the false branches can take several words, sentences, and even longer to be discounted. Such false leads can take several days or even weeks to identify.
430:
contains a mention of a schismatic monk
Andreyan jailed for disagreeing with the official church in 1004, during the timeframe the codex texts were written. According to
411:
in 988, and operated in a still largely pagan Rus of the early 11th century. The concealed texts contain a conversion prayer, which in first person singular and plural (
776:
Zaliznyak, Andrey (2002). Tetralogiya «Ot yazychestva k Hristu» iz Novgorodskogo kodeksa XI veka. // Russkij yazyk v nauchnom osveschenii. № 2 (4): 35—56 (in Russian).
400:, at the church of St. Alexander the Armenian…”). The year 6507/999 reappears several times on the margins, and is the only numerical sequence identified in the text.
434:, this Andreyan was a Bogomil. So the Novgorod Bogomil codex being found in the vicinity of a courthouse in the early 11th century therefore leads to some theories.
805:
Zaliznyak, Andrey; Yanin, Valentin (2001). Novgorodskij kodeks pervoi chetverti XI v. — drevneishaya kniga Rusi. In Voprosy yazykoznaniya. № 5: 3—25 (in Russian).
431:
134:
Since 1932, remnants of the medieval Russian city of Veliky Novgorod have been continuously excavated by the Novgorod Archaeological Expedition started by
510:
The great number of so far unknown texts in the Novgorod Codex might be explained by the fact that the writer belonged to a Christian community declared
336:
838:
328:
were made right after each other, or weeks, months or even years apart. Multiple copies of the same text make identifying false chains easier.
173:
are estimated to have grown at about 1 cm per year, the document was estimated to have been placed there around 1015-1020. Subsequent
189:
in 988 are considered unlikely, and as such, the wax tablets are reliably dated to a very narrow 42-year window between 988 and 1030 AD.
281:
cutting through the thin wax. It took the research team several weeks to realize that some symbols could be discerned in the scratches.
853:
793:
754:
858:
828:
185:
gave the range of 760 AD to 1030 AD with a 95.4% certainty. Due to the Christian text on the tablets, dates earlier than the
823:
818:
863:
843:
746:
Sobolev, A. N. (2003). Новгородская псалтырь XI века и ее антиграф . In Voprosy yazykoznaniya. pp. 113–143 (in Russian).
408:
186:
637:
Work on the Novgorod Codex is continuing. Scholarly literature, so far published only in Russian, is listed in the
371:. Its introduction is written in first person by somebody who identifies himself as 'Alexander, the Areopagite of
212:). This is the so-called basic text of the Novgorod Codex. Consequently, the book is alternatively known as the
868:
763:Славянское языкознание. XIII Международный съезд славистов. Любляна, 2003 г. Доклады российской делегации
625:
The world is a town in which people not forsaking the true faith in Christ are excluded from the church.
344:
identical chains, matching to the letter, but the chains were admittedly short, only 20-30 symbols long.
102:
833:
506:
a fragment of the so far unknown text “Spiritual Instruction from the Father and the Mother to the Son”
320:, identifying these chains becomes somewhat easier than would be the case were it written with spaces.
347:
Finally, a problem Zaliznyak considers unsolvable is identifying spelling errors or Russisms in the
244:
origin. The whole text was written by the same hand in a so-called 'monoyeric' orthography (Russian
585:
The world is a town in which people not deserving of this punishment are excluded from the church.
503:
a fragment of the so far unknown text “Instruction by Alexander of Laodicea on Forgiveness of Sins”
419:) denies idolatry and accepts Christianity, so it is likely Isaakiy himself converted pagan Slavs.
273:
241:
593:
The world is a town in which people not deserving of this exclusion are excluded from the church.
75:
46:
622:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы неотъстѫпъны отъ правыѩ вѣры х҃совы.
165:
The tablets were discovered in a stratum 50 cm away and 30 cm below a wooden walkway
489:
a fragment of the so far unknown text “On the Concealed Church of Our Saviour Jesus Christ in
490:
438:
376:
221:
147:
788:
289:
135:
8:
848:
515:
348:
233:
766:
590:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы недостойны такого отълѫчения.
617:
The world is a town in which people worthy of veneration are excluded from the church.
465:
427:
178:
174:
110:
757:[Problems of studying the Novgorod Codex of the 11th century, found in 2000]
317:
367:
One of the first concealed texts reconstructed was an unnamed text Zaliznyak called
232:
The language of the Novgorod Codex is a very regular (especially in the basic text)
780:
750:
609:
The world is a town in which people worthy of praise are excluded from the church.
285:
166:
115:
106:
66:
37:
791:[The Novgorod Psalter of the early 11th century—the oldest book of Rus'].
614:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы достоины прославления.
582:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы недостоины такоѩ кары.
496:
a fragment of the so far unknown text “Tale of the Apostle Paul on Moses’ Secret
471:
442:
90:
601:
The world is a town in which people of pure faith are excluded from the church.
300:”). Consequently, ‘reading’ a single concealed text of one page can take weeks.
784:
154:
86:
553:
The world is a town in which disobedient people are excluded from the church.
812:
577:
The world is a town in which inflexible people are excluded from the church.
561:
The world is a town in which blameless people are excluded from the church.
569:
The world is a town in which innocent people are excluded from the church.
126:
606:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы достоины хвалы.
598:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы прѣчистыѩ вѣры.
19:
545:
The world is a town in which unwise people are excluded from the church.
479:
381:
332:
755:"Проблемы изучения Новгородского кодекса XI века, найденного в 2000 г."
723:
719:
650:
574:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы непрѣломъны.
542:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы неразоумъны.
519:
423:
297:
158:
94:
566:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы невиновъны.
558:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы непорочъны.
550:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве чловѣкы непокоривы.
497:
457:
The following concealed texts, among others, have been found so far:
422:
The teachings of Alexander the Armenian were likely an early form of
217:
537:
The world is a town in which heretics are excluded from the church.
437:
Finally, a feature of the texts is common allusions to the city of
209:
205:
201:
170:
470:
the beginning of a translation of the treatise “On virginity” by
389:
359:
139:
138:. Since the early 1970s, the excavations focused on the Troitza (
511:
397:
372:
340:
293:
278:
198:
182:
143:
789:"Новгородская псалтырь начала XI века — древнейшая книга Руси"
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679:
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675:
673:
671:
392:
is connected to the listing of Thracians early in the list.
354:
534:Миръ естъ градъ въ немъ же отълѫчаѭтъ отъ цръкъве еретикы.
303:
216:. This text can be read as easily as any other document on
130:
An example of excavated Novgorod boardwalk, built ca. 1120
668:
249:
237:
277:
wax was found to have been extensively scratched by the
698:
696:
694:
765:(in Russian). Moscow. pp. 190–212. Archived from
461:
a multitude of psalms, written down several times each
236:, albeit with some 'mistakes' in the rendition of the
493:
and On the Laodicean Prayer of Our Lord Jesus Christ”
80:
51:
691:
474:, of which a Slavonic translation had not been known
118:, the earliest precisely dated book of Kievan Rus'.
268:
162:holding the tablets together as a four-page book.
810:
153:On 13 July 2000, the expedition headed by prof.
779:
685:
23:1st page of the Codex at the time of discovery
121:
288:, one of the foremost experts on the early
794:Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences
749:
702:
355:Concealed texts and identity of the owner
169:dated to the year 1036. As the strata in
713:
711:
358:
331:The process remains exceedingly hard to
302:
125:
18:
150:; wax tablets were extremely uncommon.
839:Earliest known manuscripts by language
811:
717:
514:by the ‘official’ church — probably a
708:
197:The wax of the codex itself contains
16:C. 1000 CE Rus' palimpset in Slavonic
13:
369:Instruction on Forgiveness of Sins
101:According to the data obtained by
14:
880:
854:11th-century biblical manuscripts
452:
718:Butrin, Dmitry (19 July 2015).
409:Christianization of Kievan Rus'
363:Reconstructed first page, Ps 75
269:Preservation and reading method
240:letters betraying the author's
187:Christianization of Kievan Rus'
89:, unearthed on 13 July 2000 in
720:"Град, в котором читают книги"
85:) is the oldest-known book of
1:
656:
192:
859:Old East Slavic inscriptions
829:Old Church Slavonic language
661:
7:
824:Old East Slavic manuscripts
819:Church Slavonic manuscripts
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248:), i.e. instead of the two
227:
81:
52:
10:
885:
864:History of Novgorod Oblast
844:Cultural history of Russia
740:
686:Zaliznyak & Yanin 2001
639:Russian Knowledge article
482:(азъ боукы вѣдѣ глаголи…)
290:medieval Novgorod dialect
246:одноеровая система письма
208:(and a small fragment of
122:Discovery and description
70:
41:
449:, takes on a new light.
157:discovered three wooden
447:The Message of Laodicea
318:no spaces between words
364:
308:
148:birch bark manuscripts
142:) area of the ancient
131:
82:Novgorodskaja psaltir'
24:
518:group similar to the
464:the beginning of the
362:
306:
222:Psalterium Sinaiticum
167:dendrochronologically
129:
71:Новгородская псалтирь
22:
869:Cyrillic manuscripts
136:Artemiy Artsikhovsky
432:Evgeniy Golubinskiy
53:Novgorodskij kodeks
42:Новгородский кодекс
466:Apocalypse of John
428:Nikonian Chronicle
365:
309:
179:Uppsala University
177:of the wax at the
175:radiocarbon dating
144:Ludin part of town
132:
25:
834:Novgorod Republic
781:Zaliznyak, Andrey
751:Zaliznyak, Andrey
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284:Russian linguist
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337:Izabel Vallotton
307:Andrey Zaliznyak
286:Andrey Zaliznyak
214:Novgorod Psalter
116:Ostromir Gospels
107:dendrochronology
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58:Novgorod Psalter
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443:Fyodor Kuritsyn
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349:Church Slavonic
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234:Church Slavonic
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91:Veliky Novgorod
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797:(in Russian).
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772:on 2013-11-10.
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722:(in Russian).
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703:Zaliznyak 2003
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155:Valentin Yanin
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111:carbon dating
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68:
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59:
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48:
39:
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30:
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792:
767:the original
762:
727:. Retrieved
636:
509:
480:letter names
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274:Preservation
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152:
133:
103:stratigraphy
100:
57:
28:
26:
333:peer-review
242:East Slavic
159:wax tablets
87:Kievan Rus'
849:Bogomilism
813:Categories
729:2015-07-21
724:Kommersant
657:References
651:Palimpsest
424:Bogomilism
298:palimpsest
193:Basic text
95:palimpsest
93:. It is a
662:Footnotes
516:dualistic
512:heretical
498:Patericon
486:Христа”).
377:Laodicean
218:parchment
76:romanized
63:‹See Tfd›
56:) or the
47:romanized
34:‹See Tfd›
787:(2001).
753:(2003).
645:See also
520:Bogomils
491:Laodicea
439:Laodicea
252:letters
228:Language
210:psalm 67
171:Novgorod
741:Sources
390:Thracia
373:Thracia
140:Trinity
78::
67:Russian
49::
38:Russian
426:. The
398:Suzdal
341:Geneva
294:stylus
279:stylus
199:psalms
183:Sweden
770:(PDF)
759:(PDF)
382:Peter
375:, of
260:only
105:(and
415:and
256:and
204:and
27:The
339:of
250:yer
238:yus
224:).
181:in
109:),
815::
799:71
783:;
761:.
710:^
693:^
670:^
641:.
445:,
417:we
206:76
202:75
73:,
69::
44:,
40::
732:.
705:.
688:.
500:”
413:I
262:ъ
258:ъ
254:ь
60:(
31:(
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