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The four-faced pole statues from the Zbruch and Ivankovtsy belongto a separate style.

Written sources mention polycephalic statues only in connection with Western Slavs. As far as Ruthenia is concemed, they are known thanks to such finds as the double-faced idol from Yaryvka, completely different from the Fischerinsel “twins,” as its heads are arranged as in statues of Janus, the sculpture from Łopuszna, probably similar, the sculpture from Ivankovtse, and the Zbruch pole, which has got four faces in the upper part and three in the lower one. Ali those examples come from the territories close to the land of Western Slavs. Only vague metions preserved information about multi-headed sculptures, which allegedly existed in the 19th c. in other Ruthenian territories (Krzak, 1992, p. 32).

Conclusions

When the Slavs entered the history of Europę, they had a religion with a pantheon of deities worshiped in sanctuaries, including temples and statues. There are morę data conceming late shrines, from the 9th c. onwards, than earlier ones, but this State of affairs reflects the generał State of our knowledge about Slavonic culture. Also the fact that Polabian and Pom-eranian sanctuaries are described in written sources morę extensively than any other group seems to result simply from a larger number of relations conceming those territories which are available. Although reliable relations about sacred groves concem only Polabia, no one has ever claimed that such shrines did not exist in other Slavonic territories. As for temples, however, the identical State of sources has eagerly been interpreted as a proof of their absence. We are not able to distinguish a period in Slavonic pagan history in which natural objects were worshiped exclusively. Only the introduction of Christianity as the offlcial religion altered the situation. The deities, expelled from strongholds and villages, found shelter in groves, near waters, at stones and on mountains.

The present study divides places of public cult into roofed temples and cult halls, and various open-air shrines, including groves, waters, stones and mountains, adopted by humans to the role of the signs of sacrum. Statues have been discussed separately. As all classifications, this grouping is arbitrary. Groves and hills were sometimes enclosed with man-made fences. Temples often stood on hills and were accompanied by open-air yards of assembly guarded by idols. The borderlines between various types of sanctuaries are fuzzy.

Not all the alleged shrines can be decisively classified as sanctuaries of gods. In some cases of archaeological research a striking lack of criteria for the Identification of pagan cult places can be observed. There are whole categories of sites, for instance the so-called “mud strongholds” or gorodishcha-syyatylishcha (strongholds-shrines), which are included into the discussion of sanctuaries, although they have been hardly explored or insuf-ficiently documented. When authors claim that they have discovered enor-mous cult halls by smali probing excavations, without presenting any picture documentation (Rusanova, 1992; Timoshchuk, Rusanova, 1983, 1986; Rybakov, 1987) such reports should be treated with utmost caution. Many

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