Fragments of the 12th century foundations of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lady in Bogolyubovo discovered during the 2015 excavations

The 2015 excavations inside the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Ladyin Bogolyubovo provided grounds for conclusions on main performance characteristicsof the site load-bearing structures: the depth of the wall and girder foundations, the materialsthey are made of, techniques and methods of their construction as well as hypotheticallyreconstruct the system of girder foundations based on the excavated fragment (Fig. 1b).The published drawings of test pit 1 in the Bogolyubovo Cathedral (Fig. 3; 4) and crosssections of the foundations of several Russian pre-Mongolian sites and one Serbian sitenot published before provide grounds for comparing regional foundation constructiontechniques borrowed by the Byzantine and Western construction workers (Fig. 5).