Tourist Routes Exploring Ancient Hillforts

Varkovyts’ke horodyshche (Varkovychi Hillfort)

A hillfort near Varkovychi village is located on the left side of the highway and in the far north-eastern part of the village in the “Horodyshche” Isolated Terrain. The remains of the fortified settlement are located on a hill, separated from the peak adjacent to it from the north-east. It is bounded by a wide valley of the Stubla River on the western and south-western sides.

Status:

Archaeological Monument of Local Importance

Location:

Rivne Oblast, Varkovychi Territorial Community (Hromada), north-eastern outskirts of Varkovychi village

Coordinates:

50.48132, 25.97671

Travel Distance to the city centre of the city of Rivne:

29,2 km

Description:

The site of the hillfort has an oval shape elongated from north-west to south-east (the sizes of the site are 54 × 152 m). In some places, there are shallow cavities formed as a result of stone and sand mining. A 1 m high and 2.0-2.5 m wide (at the bottom part) earthen rampart surrounds the site perimeter. The entrance to the hillfort was located on the western section of the rampart. In the southern part of the rampart there is a 1.3-1.5 m wide stone crepidoma (the multilevel platform on which the superstructure of the building is erected), lined with limestone. Some fragments of pottery ceramics of the 10th-11th centuries were found in the cultural layer of the hillfort.

The Varkovychi Hillfort has been known since the end of the 19th century, when Volodymyr Antonovych conducted his archaeological explorations here. In the mid-1980s the hillfort was surveyed during an archaeological expedition of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv under the leadership of R. Chaika. S. Terskyi conducted the visual inspections with brief descriptions in the late 1990s. Since the early 2000s, the hillfort has been repeatedly inspected by joint archaeological reconnaissances of V. Tkach and A. Bardetskyi.

The Varkovychi Hillfort hides many secrets and needs further detailed archaeological research.

Historic reference: Oleksii Voitiuk, photograph and video: Yurii Oitsius

Video

Routes that pass through this location