A four-sided grey limestone pillar statue, about 2.67 metres tall, carved on all four faces in three horizontal tiers usually read as the underworld, the world of the living and the celestial realm of the gods, and crowned by a single stone cap bearing one four-faced head looking in all four directions. Pulled from the Zbruch River near Lychkivtsi, then Liczkowce, during a drought in 1848, it was given to Count Mieczyslaw Potocki, who proposed identifying the four-faced summit figure with Svetovid, the many-faced Slavic god described in medieval chronicles of the pagan Baltic Slavs. Scholars remain divided on the identification: some read the four faces as four separate deities rather than one, and the crouching figure on the lowest tier, bearing the weight of the whole pillar, is separately identified by some as Veles, associated with the underworld and cattle. Whatever its precise reading, it is the single most important surviving monumental sculpture of pre-Christian Slavic religion and has become a visual touchstone for the modern Rodnovery revival, appearing in replica at Slavic pagan sites across Eastern Europe.
Facts
Custody
Current LocationMuzeum Archeologiczne w Krakowie (Archaeological Museum in Krakow), Poland 1 Current CustodianMuzeum Archeologiczne w Krakowie 1 Custody HistoryRecovered from the Zbruch River near Lychkivtsi during the 1848 drought; passed to Count Mieczyslaw Potocki, who presented it to the Krakow Scientific Society in 1850; in the Krakow Archaeological Museum since 1851. 1 Origins
CreationSourced to the subject's own account Date of CreationSourced to the subject's own account9th to 10th century AD (proposed dating; genuineness and precise date have both been debated) 2 CountryUkraine (findspot); Poland (current location) 1 Rights and Reproduction
Reproduction and CopyrightThis atlas describes and cites the idol rather than reproducing a photograph of it. 1 Physical Form
DimensionsAbout 2.67 metres tall, 29 to 32 cm wide 1 Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectSourced to the subject's own accountA single four-faced deity, or several distinct deities, in three cosmological tiers; commonly but not universally identified with Svetovid. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Eastern Europe directly: "replica at Slavic pagan sites across Eastern Europe."
This source names Slavs directly: "chronicles of the pagan Baltic Slavs."
Veles, Deities This source names Veles directly: "is separately identified by some as Veles, associated with the underworld and cattle."
Belongs to Tradition
Sources
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