Cult place at the Dome Church

During the excavations at the Dome Cathedral under the guidance of archeologists A. Caune and S. Tilko in the period between 1986 and 1989, several constructions were found – holes, bonfire places, pole spots which are attributed to a cultic character. A sure cult site is the construction that was discovered in the 4th excavation field. It was an about 2 x 3 m large and around 0.5 m deep bowl-shaped hole. The hole was filled with thin layers of coal and ash. When the hole was emptied the archeologists found three unburnt pine wood net floats, a two-sided bone comb with broken-off teeth, sandstone hone and around 30 gravel clay fragments of crocquery characteristic to the local people. In the central part of the big hole under a more intensive layer of coal there was the second hole – about 0.6 m large and about 0.5 m deep. In the bottom of it in coal a half of the bottom jaw of a horse had been laid. In the NW corner of the big hole there was an approximately 30 cm thick lower part of an oak pole dug into the ground. Next to it, in the W side there had been 5 pickets driven in. From these only the sharpened lower parts had remained. According to the radiocarbon dating method the established age of the pole wood sample is 850 ± 40 years, this means that the tree was cut in year 1100 ± 40 years. It is possible that the upper part of the column had been made as a deity’s image. It is known that at the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th the pagan Livs people had deity images carved in wood. In the earlier excavations in Riga several small wooden sticks with carefully cut faces or head replicas of one, two or four persons were found which are considered images of a special home god or an individual portable along images of gods. Such an idol’s image might have possibly been also in this sacrifice site. Next to the idol’s image on the ends of other pickets various sacrifices could have been placed (After: Caune, 1992).