One burial from the cemetery near the Transfiguration Church in Borovsk: archaeological and anthropological aspects

In 2021 a part of the cemetery near the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior in the town square of Borovsk (Kaluga region) was examined. One grave was deposited in a tree-trunk sarcophagus. It was anthropoid in shape and had a rarely found type of lid attachment; as such it stands out among the excavated burials. The osteoscopic examination of the human remains from this burial revealed traces of 19 healed traumatic injuries, at two of them were identified by the authors as combat injuries. Along with the identified signs of horseback riding activity, this fact suggested that the deceased person belonged to the military elite. The reconstructed body length of this man essentially exceeds the average figures estimated for the series dating to the Late Middle Ages and the modern period, which is considered an indirect evidence of this hypothesis. Symptoms of a metabolic disease (Forestier's disease) identified on the bones of his skeleton imply a high quality of this man's life.