FlNDS OF ANCIENT DUGOUTS IN THE USSR AND COSSACK DUGOUTS « OAKS »*
Vladimir R. Chepelev
The history of the shipbuilding has corne from ancient times and covers some millennia. Its évolution was long and complex from a dugout logboat to an atomic powered vessel. Finds of ancient dugouts hâve a great significance for the study of the sources of shipbuilding. The information about the finds which hâve been made in the territory of the USSR is of great interest for archaeologist and historians of shipbuilding. The description of the finds is given according to the place and time of their discovery (fig. 1).
Nous avons regroupé ici les deux textes proposés par Vladimir R. Chepelev sur les découvertes de monoxyles en URSS, en raison de leur caractère totalement inédit, bien que seul le second sur les monoxyles cosaques ait fait l'objet d'une communication orale. Pour des raisons pratiques évidentes, nous avons transcrit les noms russes et ukrainiens et donné une traduction des titres cités en bibliographie. Nous tenons à remercier tout particulièrement Mme Ariette Fraysse pour ce travail.
A dugout from the Lake Ladoga
Finds of ancient dugouts took place in our country long ago1, but the dugout which was found in 1878 on the south bank of Ladoga lake near the village Korovkino, became the first find well-known to science. Building a by-pass canal, the workers discovered big oak trunks. One of them turned out to be a dugout. The boat was destroyed by navvies, only one third part of it, 170 cm, escaped destruction. The find was investigated and published by Professor A. A. Inostrancev2. The graphie reconstruction of the boat was made by B. P. Favorov and he defined its technical characteristics3 (fig. 2b). The generai length of the boat was 362 cm, the width was 85 cm, the height was 36,5 cm, the thickness of the sides and the bottom was 2-3 cm. There were two partitions inside the
1. B. P. Favorov, Les embarcations de l'âge de pierre, 1977, p. 61.
2. A. A. Inostrancev, L'homme de l'âge de pierre, 1882, p. 171-175.
3. B. P. Favorov, Les embarcations de l'âge de pierre, 1977, p. 61; B. P. Favorov, Les monoxyles, 1982, p. 77; S. A. Semenov, B. P. Favorov, À propos du début de la construction navale russe, 1980, p. 57.
Archaeonautica, vol. 14, 1998.
© CNRS ÉDITIONS, 1999
