Azov archeologists have found a way-out grave of the 1st AD - a cenotaph with remains of sacrificed people.

      “The unearthed grave struck out like a sore thumb with its unusual funeral ceremony. The biggest part of the rectangular grave was empty”, - the head of the archeology department of the Azov Memorial Estate Andrey Maslovsky said.

      All the finds were kept in the northern corner of the cenotaph. They included a whole light-clay amphora, two pots, fragments of several other vessels, an arrowhead and a fibula. In the same place there lay a small-size human skeleton doubled up and facing the amphora.

      Cenotaph is a sort of symbolical grave, arranged by ancient Greeks if the body was lost or destroyed, for example, in case of an earthquake.

      In Ancient Greece the custom of constructing a cenotaph was related to the belief that the dead who missed special funeral rituals and had no grave could not rest in peace, suffered from it and could even revenge to the living ones.

      Thanks to the finds unearthed in this grave the archaeologists nicknamed it a blood-thirsty merchant’s grave.