В.А.Чудинов

The VOYDI Stone

(a passage from my letter to Slovenian professor Anton Perdih)

V. Čudinov

Dear professor Perdih. Thank you for your letter which I have recently received with a photo of a small stone (unfortunately I don’t know its dimensions). On the first look it is a surface of a right foot of a man (with no toes) where there is an inscription, and you are quite correct to attribute its script as Runica. The inscription is traditional, VOYDI, that means ENTER! It is interesting to mark that in Medieval time in Russia instead of ENTRANCE on the threshold of a building was written ENTER (the verb in imperative instead of a noun). I wish to mark that in my book “Runica and the secrets of Russ archaeology” on the page 285, Fig. 208 we see the same inscription VOYDI on the threshold of the Uspenski cathedral in Rjazan, , but with some inclination to the left. It is the level of traditional investigation — the macroscopic description of the object.

But we can go further to the semi-microscopic investigation and to some operations with the photo, for example to reverse the colors, Fig. 1.

Fig 1. The stone photo in negative imagination

On the Fig. 1 in the middle on the right I place a fragment of main inscription behind the last syllabic sign — it is syllabograph with the meaning V. Such is the clear end of the main inscription.

We can read big inscription written as background around the main inscription — now the script is Cyrillic and the inscription of background is MARY. Mara is the name of very powerful Slavic goddess, the goddess of Illness and Death. Mara had her own underground temple and her own temple workshop where some cult things were made. I believe that this stone was made in such workshop. Some small inscription we can see under the main one. It is the word HRAM, or TEMPLE. Therefore the whole main inscription is VOYDI V HRAM MARY, or ENTER IN THE MARA TEMPLE, where first half of inscription (VOJDI V) was written clear, dark in light, and in runica, and the second half (HRAM MARY) was written unclear, as light background around the main dark inscription and in Cyrillic.

The same inscription, but with the word Mara in Genitive we can see on the inscription in the frame (turned on 90⁰ to the left). My reading is MARY HRAM in Slavic or THE TEMPLE OF MARA in English. Now we can consider the stone as invitation to visit the Temple of Mara, as some kind of advertising of her temple.

Fig. 2. My reading of the microscopic inscriptions

Now we can read the microscopic inscriptions, Fig.2. Here we can read the words MASTERSKAYA (WORKSHOP) — on the top and near the second vertical line of the sign DI. We see also the word HRAMA (OF THE TEMPLE) and the words MARY (OF MARA) in the frames. It is an artisan’s formula: MASTERSKAYA HRAMA MARY (THE MARA TEMPLE WORKSHOP) as the modern inscription of a maker.

There are some other micro inscriptions with the same text, MASTERSKAYA HRAMA MARY (THE MARA TEMPLE WORKSHOP), but such is tradition. For my computer scanner the photo is rather dark and I cannot obtain good copy of the signs VO and I. But by my eye I can see that the sign VO consists from the inscription MASTERSKAYA (right diagonal), and that under the horizontal line of the sign I see the word MARY. And the word MASTERSKAYA was repeated on the left vertical line of the sign DI, meanwhile on the right vertical line of the same sign DI we can see vertical characters of Cyrillic, containing the inscription HRAMA MARY.

Fig. 3. The composition of the character M from some smaller inscriptions

On the Fig. 3 we can see the composition of the character M from some small inscriptions where I can read the same words: MASTERSKAYA HRAMA MARY (THE MARA TEMPLE WORKSHOP). Therefore nothing else I cannot find here.

I thank you and Mr. Leopold Silver for interesting photo, but I am afraid that in Moscow libraries I cannot find the book of him “Iskal sem prednamce” published in Torjak in 2003. The relations between Russian and Slovenian libraries are very poor or in general absent. But for me it is interesting when and where this stone was found.

I am glad to inform you that under recommendation of our Commission was published as reprint (by Pavel Tulajev and Just Rugel) the first book — “Starodavni in današni slovenci” of Jurij Venelin (in Russian; the Preface of P. Tulajev “Vrnitev Jurija Venelina” is printed in two languages, Russian and Slovenian). — Moscow, 2004, “D-r France Prešern”, 382 s. The first and unique publishing of this book was only in 1841. Therefore our Commission began to work.

Now I am starting to work on the book about Slavic inscriptions in the Stone Age. I have some my articles for this purpuses, but there not exist microscopic analysis, and I have to do it too.

22 May 2004