MOSCOW, RUSSIA—Excavations in Moscow’s central Zaryadie district have uncovered layers of wooden pavements thought to represent the city’s oldest road, known as Velikaya, “The Large One.” Although not named on historic city plans, it is mentioned in city chronicles, and is believed to have connected the old Kremlin and a wharf on the Moscow River. “We were very lucky to have reached the road. The district is full of the city’s infrastructure lines and old archaeological excavation sites,” Leonid Belyayev of the Archaeology Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences told The Moscow Times. Most of the seventeenth-century road surface has been revealed, and in areas, the fifteenth-century road has been uncovered. The deepest layer of the road surface is thought to date to the twelfth century, when the Kremlin was established. For more, go to “Moscow Underground.”
Moscow’s Oldest Road Uncovered
News September 24, 2015
Recommended Articles
Digs & Discoveries November/December 2024
Nineteenth-Century Booze Cruise
Features September/October 2023
Ukraine’s Lost Capital
In 1708, Peter the Great destroyed Baturyn, a bastion of Cossack independence and culture
-
Features July/August 2015
In Search of a Philosopher’s Stone
At a remote site in Turkey, archaeologists have found fragments of the ancient world’s most massive inscription
(Martin Bachmann) -
Letter from Virginia July/August 2015
Free Before Emancipation
Excavations are providing a new look at some of the Civil War’s earliest fugitive slaves—considered war goods or contraband—and their first taste of liberty
(Library of Congress) -
Artifacts July/August 2015
Gold Lock-Rings
(Courtesy Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum of Wales) -
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2015
A Spin through Augustan Rome
(Courtesy and created at the Experiential Technologies Center, UCLA, ©Regents of the University of California)