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Introduction
Zvenyhorod was one of the most important Galician towns during the age of Kyivan Rus' (ca. 900-1240). Located between two branches of the Bilka River near what is today the village of Zvenyhorod in Pustomyty raion southeast of Lviv, it was the principal centre of the Galician land before the rise of Halych as a princely capital in the 1140s. Zvenyhorod was first mentioned in the Rus' Primary Chronicle under the year 1086 in connection with the assassination of the Volhynian prince Iaropolk Iziaslavych on his way there from Volodymyr.1 In 1124 Prince Volodymyrko, the son of Volodar Rostyslavych of Peremyshl, made Zvenyhorod the capital of his breakaway principality. Two years later he annexed Peremyshl principality, and in 1141 Terebovl and Halych principalities also became part of the domain that he ruled from Zvenyhorod. In 1144, and again in 1146, Grand Prince Vsevolod Olhovych of Kyiv tried to take Zvenyhorod by force.2 It was also in 1144 that Volodymyrko made Halych his new capital,3 possibly because of that town's more favourable location on one of the most important trade routes (the Dniester River and the road to Hungary) and near large deposits of salt that was mined and exported, bringing great profits to the prince.4 But even after Zvenyhorod lost its status as a princely seat, it remained an important economic, political, and military centre in southwestern Rus' until the Mongols destroyed it in 1241.
Although Zvenyhorod is mentioned several times in the Rus' chronicles in connection with political events and battles, very little is known about its history and culture. Written sources tell us nothing about how people lived in the medieval town. Consequently scholars have to rely on archaeology to reconstruct its history. Systematic archaeological study of Zvenyhorod began only in the 1950s.(5) Some of the most interesting results, however, came from the excavations conducted during the 1980s.(6) In 1982 Ihor K. Svieshnikov began digging in the northeastern section of the lower, commercial part of the medieval town. According to an eighteenth-century map, the area that he excavated had been inundated by a pond, and in more recent times it was covered by a swamp. Under the sterile, moist, 0.7-0.8 m layer of chernozem,...