White-stone carving in the facade decoration of the Yaroslavl churches in the early 13th century: observations and preliminary conclusions

Archaeological excavations of Yaroslavl churches dating to the early 13th century conducted by the Institute of Archaeology, RAS in 2005-2009 revealed a limited number of fragments with white-stone carving. Several fragments of the white-stone carving are also kept in the Yaroslavl museum reserve. The task of this paper is to attribute the found artifacts and, more broadly, raise an issue on application of carved decoration in the churches of Northeastern Rus built from plinth early in the 13th century.