A necropolis near the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh: archeology, history, anthropology: archeology, history, anthropology. Part 2. Church cemetery
Introduction. The second part of the article contains the results of historical, archaeological and anthropological analyses of the burials discovered in 2017 in the territory of the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh, the Republic of Belarus. The objective of the work was to establish the origins and social identity of the deceased. Materials and methods. A historiographical note about the church was compiled based on the documents from archives of the Jesuit Order. Long bones of the skeleton were studied. The anthropological part of the study was carried out using the skeletal sample of the XVI-XVII cc. and employing standard protocols. The simple moving average technique was used for modeling the demographic structure of the sample. Results and discussion. The area surrounding the church was not initially planned as a burial ground and, according to the documents, has not been used as a cemetery. But since the XVII c., some inhumations have been made inside this area, including family burials. The bioarcheological study revealed the minimum number of individuals (MNI), demographic structure of the necropolis, and reconstructed mortality rates. Conclusion. The area around the church since the early 17th century has been used mainly for burying noble persons, patricians of the city, or residents of the Jesuit collegium at Nesvizh. A high social status of the deceased is confirmed by the grave goods. From 1773 to 1793, some parishioners could have also been buried in this area. Later on, sporadic burials of priests and rectors of the temple were made during the 19th and 20th centuries; in 1944, Wehrmacht soldiers were buried there. Males (51.5%) and sub-adults (36.9%) are prevalent in the osteological sample of the XVII-XVIII centuries. The mean age at death was 34.3 years for the whole sample, 50.2 years for adults and 6.7 years for sub-adults. The church of the Corpus Christi Church and the territory adjacent to it can be considered as a burial complex consisting of two parts: a family crypt of Radziwills, and the necropolis, which existed in the XVII and XVIII centuries. The burials near the church could belong to various groups of Nesvizh’s citizens: first parishioners of the Catholic church in Nesvizh, members of the magistrate, noblemen - patrons of the church, closely connected to the court of the Princes of Radziwill, and clerics - members of the Jesuit order and rectors of the temple. The results of the bioarcheological study are fully consistent with the historical and archaeological data on the social status of the persons buried at the Corpus Christi Church in Nesvizh. The identification of all persons who may have been buried at the Nesvizh collegium requires additional research of documents stored in the archives in Krakow and Rome.