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1987, p. 215 (following I.P. Rusanova).

zherłvennik in Kiev. The motivation seems too weak to turn her suggestion into a hypothesis. A thesis presented by Rybakov (1987, p. 213-223), who finds the shape of the shrine similar to feminine curves and interprets it as

Fig. 63. The shrine upon the Khnylopiat. The sanctuary proper. 1 - Stones; 2 - hollows in the rock-bed covered by fire-ptaces; 3 — post-holes; 4 — bumt bones; 5 - layer of charcoal; 6 - day. After I.P. Rusanova, 1966a, p. 234.

a sanctuary of Mokoś, Zhyvia or Baba Yaga, the queen of the underworld, belongs entirely to the science-fiction sphere.

The alleged sacrificial altar from Kiev is not a uniąue object - let us recall the stone piąte from Starigard/Oldenburg here - which seems to support the thesis that it was a zhertvennik. A similar object was revealed by I.S. Vinokur and O.M. Prikhodniuk (1969), during the exploration of a large Slavonic settlement in a place called Gniloy Kut upon the Smotrych near Kamenets Podolsky. It was a rectangle sized 2.3 mx 1.5 m paved with Stones and covered with ash. it had an adjoining shallow hole used as a flre-place at the eastern edge. Few animal bones and fragments of pottery were found in the hole and among the stones. The axis of the object exactly overlapped with the east-west linę. The discoverers interpret it as a “cult yard” (Prikhodniuk, 1975, p. 98-99). It might have been an altar.

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