Archeologists have found moulded ceramics of the 9th – early 10th century in the Sobornaya Hill in Smolensk. 

      It was considered in the last decades that there were no materials of that time in the Sobornaya Hill.

      The excavation in Smolensk was carried by the archaeological expedition of the Archeology Institute in 2014. Most of the holes and pits were made in the places of housing estate reconstruction. 

      Moulded ceramics was for the first time found in the Sobornaya Hill by A.N. Lyavdansky in 1925. However, the excavation materials were lost during World War II. Recently archeologists believed that there was an ancient site of the 5th – 7th centuries there, but no ceramics and other finds of the 9th – 10th centuries in the Sobornaya Hill.

      Researchers point out that the ceramic artifacts of the 9th – 10th centuries are few, but widely scattered on the northeast slope of the Sobornaya Hill. According to archeologists, it means that the settlement on the hill was of considerable size.