Construction sacrifice: the creepiest rite in history. The movie immured in the wall watch online Immured people

In the folklore of many peoples, there are creepy stories about people walled up alive. Why did such a terrible death befell them? It was believed that some were punished for crimes, explicit or fictitious. Others were to remain forever the watchmen and guardians of the place in which they found their death. And everything could be considered just folk tales, if builders and archaeologists during the work would sometimes not come across such terrible finds.

From the history of sacrifices

But let's start in order, from the very beginning. The peoples of antiquity (and some practically until today) believed that the gods and spirits must be properly appeased if you want to receive something from them.

Everything is logical: people also prefer not to work for free. Likewise, perfume, if you want to get something meaningful and valuable, you have to pay accordingly. And what do spirits and gods prefer? And this depends on the "specialization" and the nature of the invisible entity.

Good spirits and gods will accept flowers, oil, incense, wine as a sacrifice, and more serious ones want serious gifts, often in the form of bloody sacrifices. Such serious invisible helpers have always been considered more powerful. Therefore, in order to appease them, they sacrificed the living: animals, and in the most serious cases, people.

Human life in ancient times was not considered particularly valuable, and not only among some wild tribes there, but also among the civilized peoples of Europe themselves. Fairy tales and legends reflect harsh realities long gone. Remember the fairy tale about Thumb Boy? In a hungry year, the family simply left the children in the forest, there is nothing to feed.

There is a Belarusian legend that the feeble old people were supposed to be taken to the forest to die. The classic of Belarusian literature V. Korotkevich wrote about this in his literary tale. Jack London has a story on the same topic, how the Indians went to more favorable places, abandoning the elderly.

The time was like that, they got rid of extra mouths without regret. Therefore, in order to ask for the tribe / people for harvest, prosperity or deliverance from danger, people were sacrificed. Much has been written about the Aztecs, who massacred captives to please their sun god.

But not only the Indians were different. And not only then. One of the tribes of India, lost in the jungle, practiced a similar custom back in the 20th century. They took a child, someone else, stole or bought - it doesn't matter. The child was raised for several years without refusing anything. And then, on the right day, they sacrificed in the fields, and in the most brutal way.

It was believed that the more the victim is tormented, the better the harvest will be and the more favorable the spirits. So, as we can see, the custom of sacrifice was everywhere and even quite recently. Over time, morals nevertheless softened and people began to be replaced by animals. Especially valuable. By the way, everyone remembers the fairy tale about sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka.

But they hardly thought about the origins of the tale. According to one version, brother Ivanushka is a substitute victim. Often, in necessary cases, human sacrifices were replaced by a horse or a cow. These were very valuable animals in ancient times, they were few, they were taken care of.

And they sacrificed only as a last resort, for example, at the funeral of princes. Or in the construction of critical buildings. In Europe, by the way, skeletons of horses are found…. under the old churches! Horse bone charms were generally valuable.

Horse skulls were hung over Slavic dwellings. It is unlikely that the horses were specially killed for this, rather, they took already "ready-made" ones. But they also killed, in the most crucial moments. As a sacrifice in the construction of buildings, bridges, etc. used pigs, roosters.

Sometimes they were cut, and sometimes they were buried alive. Apparently, it was believed that in this way they would better guard the building entrusted to them. And the local spirits will be happy and will not harm. Apparently, the logic of the ancient builders was as follows.

Golshany castle in Belarus

And so we finally got to the victims of capital construction. Judging by the legends, human sacrifices were more often brought not "just in case", although this could have happened, but when the construction did not go well. Since construction is not going on, it means that the spirits are angry, people reasoned. And they must be appeased with a suitable victim.

A similar legend exists about an ancient castle in Golshany, Belarus. Once the owner of the castle ordered to build a tower. But no matter how hard the workers tried, the walls were constantly crumbling. The prince hastened the construction and began to get angry, and the prince's anger in those days, you understand, is not a joke.

Then they decided to make a sacrifice, they decided that it would be the first one who comes to the construction site in the morning. The young wife of one of the workers came running first. I wanted to quickly bring breakfast to my beloved husband ... The tower was completed and stood until our time. Over the past centuries, the castle was badly damaged, many parts were still intact.
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Lining up

Immured from Carcassonne. Engraving by Jean-Paul Laurent. XIX century. Private count

In 14th century Europe, the courts of the Inquisition were sentenced to imprisonment forever, or walled up. This execution, which was one of the highest punishment measures, consisted in the fact that the condemned was placed in a stone bag, tightly sealing the exits. The wounded were slowly dying of hunger, thirst and lack of air.

Immolation existed in Ancient Greece. Sophocles mentions him in passing in Antigone. Having violated the prohibition of the king of Thebes, Creon, Antigone buried the body of Polynices. The tyrant pronounced the verdict: Antigone had to die of hunger and thirst in a cave from which she could not get out.

A verdict for oblivion. Engraving. Private count

The same fate awaited the Vestals who broke their vows - the priestesses of the home goddess Vesta, who were selected from among the young virgin Romans. In fact, they were most often buried alive, as prescribed by the religious code.

In Japan, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the condemned were walled up in the supports of bridges under construction, so that their spirit would give the structure greater strength.

In France, the Albigensian Inquisition has repeatedly sentenced heretics from Albi, Toulouse and Carcassonne to be immured. One of the episodes in the history of the Carcassonne Inquisition at the beginning of the 14th century inspired J.-P. Laurent to create the painting "The Liberation of the Walled Up": workers in the presence of members of the municipality dismantle the stone wall that blocks the entrance to the prison.

Closing up was a sentence to oblivion. And it threatened not only heretics. For centuries, neither the law nor the customs established any clear rules for keeping convicts in prisons. Thus, imprisonment often meant an unspoken death sentence. In the middle of the XIV century in Paris alone, there were from twenty-five to thirty "special prisons", not counting the "stone bags" of numerous religious communities. Up to twenty prisoners were held in a cell on Tannery Street measuring three and a half by two meters and ten centimeters. Several corpses were taken out every week.

In the prisons of the Big and Small Palaces, in the Bastille, Conciergerie and Fort-L'Eveque there were underground punishment cells, practically deprived of access to air and light, where imminent death awaited a person.

In the "lower statutes" of the Small Palace, a person died of suffocation within one or two days.

Some of the chambers in the dungeons of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés were underground at a depth of more than ten meters. The vaults were so low that a person could not straighten up to his full height. The stagnant water rotted the straw. To be in such a cell meant to get into "slavery", "birdcage", "well", "flask", "stone bag", "coffin" - all these unambiguous names still inspire horror.

Dungeons of the Bastille. Engraving from a drawing of Waelta. XVIII century Private count

According to the testimony of that era, in the Grand-Châtelet there was a nook called the "Hipocrates Dam", where prisoners could neither lie down nor stand up, and their feet were always in the water.

One of the last sentences for immuring up a secular court was rendered by René Vermandois in 1485. For the murder of her husband, she was supposed to be burned at the stake. The king pardoned her, with the consent of parliament, sentencing her to imprisonment and walled up in the cemetery of the "Holy Martyrs", where she was to end her days. In accordance with the verdict, a cell was built in the cemetery, the woman was taken inside and the exit was permanently walled up.

It turns out that all the peoples of Europe had a barbaric custom of walled up people within the walls. For what? The walls of Copenhagen, for example, collapsed several times, until the builders took an innocent hungry girl and sat at a table with food. While the girl ate and played, twelve workers folded up the vault. Then, as the walls were being erected, music was played near the crypt to drown out the screams of the unfortunate girl.

In Italian legends, you can find a story about a bridge over the Artu River, which collapsed all the time until the builder's wife was walled up in it. The bridge stands, but from time to time it shakes from the sobs and curses of the unfortunate woman.

In Scotland, the ancient Picts watered all their buildings with human blood when they were laid. In England, they talk about a certain Worthingern who could not finish the tower until he shed the blood of a child born without a father on the foundation.

The Slavs also left not far. Three Serb brothers decided to build a fortress, but the evil mermaid constantly, year after year, destroyed what three hundred masons were building. I had to appease the villainess with a human sacrifice, which was to become the wife of that brother, who was the first to bring food to the workers. The brothers vowed to keep it a secret, but the two elders warned their wives and when the younger's wife came to the construction site, she was immediately walled up in the wall. True, the woman begged to leave a small hole through which she could breastfeed a newly born child. Until now, Serbian women come to the spring, which flows along the walls of the fortress and has the color of milk.

In Russia there were fortresses-detintsy, the name of which speaks for itself. The Slavic princes, starting to lay the detinets and observing the custom, sent their warriors on the road with the order to seize the first child that they came across. The child's fate was clear.

In 1463, Polish peasants who lived along the Nogaut River decided to fix the dam and, to make the dam stronger, they decided to leave some person there. The peasants did just that: they gave the beggar a drink and buried him alive. This custom turned out to be so tenacious that in 1843 the inhabitants of the German town of Halle offered to lay a child in the foundation of a new bridge. This, fortunately, was not done, considering it barbaric. But sacrifice often takes on milder forms. In Germany, for example, when laying bridges, a Christian soul is promised as a sacrifice to an evil spirit, but they deceive and let the cock go first across the finished bridge. In Russia, a cat is the first to enter a new house, trying to detect evil spirits. In other countries, the dog replaces the cat. In Denmark, a lamb is buried under the altar of a new church to keep the church longer. In modern Greece, builders sacrifice a lamb or a black rooster on the first laid stone - a symbol of black forces. There is also a belief that the first one who passes by the construction that has begun will not live long.

But do not think that the custom of making sacrifices for the strength of the foundation is characteristic only of Europe. Back in the 17th century in Japan, there was a belief that a wall erected over a voluntary human sacrifice would protect future owners from misfortune. To do this, they searched for the most unfortunate slave who preferred death to life, and heaped him with stones in the foundation.

In Polynesia, the supporting column of the Temple of Mava is erected over the body of a human victim. During the construction of the Big House on the island of Borneo, a hole was dug for the central pillar and a slave girl was lowered there. The post hung over the pit, and when the ropes were cut, the post crushed the girl. In Burma, during the construction of a new gate in the city of Tavoya, wishing to appease the demon, a criminal was thrown into each pit. In Mandalay, the queen was drowned in a moat to make the city impregnable.

The story of the sailor John Jackson, who lived for two years among the savages of the Fiji island, is well known. Once the natives began to rebuild the house of the local leader of the tribe, and at the same time they brought in some people and buried them alive in pits, where pillars for the house were erected. Jackson approached one of the pits and saw a man standing in it with his arms around a post, his head still not covered with earth. Jackson asked why they bury living people in the ground. The savages replied that the house could not last long if people did not constantly support its pillars. When asked how people can support the pillars after death, the natives explained that if people decided to sacrifice their lives to support the pillars, then the power of this sacrifice would induce the gods to save the house after their death.

As for America, the Indians made sacrifices so often and so much that the cruelty towards them on the part of the conquistadors is often explained by a similar attitude of the Indians to human life.

Correspondents of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" contacted Sergei Lavrichenko, brother of her husband Elena Lavrichenko, who voluntarily immured herself into an apartment with her son, Andrey.
Sergei Vladimirovich considers himself to be the victim in this situation, and finds the claims of his relatives to the apartment unfounded. Here's what he said:
- Elena Vladimirovna grossly violates my rights to housing, to live. I can't get to my apartment. Why doesn't she execute the court's decision, why does she arrange some kind of tragicomedy?
He presents himself as a white lamb, but in reality everything is not so. She goes under criminal cases. The Central District Court of Novosibirsk is considering two criminal cases under part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale - real estate fraud, loan defaults, non-payment of wages). And a bunch of dark affairs behind her back, and no one can cope with her.
And now she took possession of my apartment and does not want to give it away. Elena Vladimirovna did not allow the doorway to be partitioned off in order to put the door and the lock. She refused, preferred to walled up, to arrange a comedy all over Russia.
Moreover, since the death of her brother, she has never paid utility bills for my half, there have already accumulated debts of tens of thousands of rubles. And I am not going to pay this money, because I cannot get into the apartment. Elena Vladimirovna even earlier deprived me of one apartment, on the day of my brother's death she asked for a power of attorney. The Leninsky court is examining this case.
I want to clarify that we are not relatives at all, and Elena Vladimirovna is not my brother's wife, they divorced before his death - in 2001. In my brother's companies, I worked as a deputy general director. We then produced electronic lighting wires, supplying shoes from Italy, then switched to agriculture.
At one time I bought three apartments in Novosibirsk, with the purchase of this particular apartment I started in 1992, when I moved to Novosibirsk. Later I sold one to buy a meat processing plant, two I had left. And now I have nothing - I live in the apartment of my mother, an 81-year-old disabled person.
In the future, we will understand only within the framework of the law. I do not intend to use any forceful methods that Elena Vladimirovna loves. Apparently, they will have to go to court again so that the bailiffs legally threw them out of the apartment. Although, of course, I could find a couple of tough guys, open this apartment and throw them out to hell, and then put security there. And let him sue me for at least 30 years. But I want the city to know who she really is.