The Bullroarer Atlas

No. NOVG2026-001

Novgorod tanged whirring laths

Russia · Novgorod the Great (Sophia and Trade sides) · Eastern Europe

Function not recorded Candidate only

Archaeological date13th–14th centuries AD
Long narrow wooden whirring lath from the Troitsky excavation, 13th–14th century, with a small rounded tab at one end and a split pointed tip at the other.
Plate I. The object itself: wooden whirring lath from the Troitsky excavation, 13th-14th century. Image source

Source term: жужжалка

жужжалка: Russian 'buzzer', from жужжать 'to buzz' — the name Russian collections give loosely to any whirled sound toy, whether swung from an end cord or spun on a twisted double cord.

Waterlogged excavations at medieval Novgorod preserved two thin wooden whirrers from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Each has a carved head or tang for attaching cord at one end and lacks the central holes typical of excavated twist-buzzers, making a swung bullroarer interpretation plausible but not proven.

Particulars

Object
Two thin wooden blades with carved terminal tangs, excavated from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Novgorod contexts.
Function
Not recorded.

Source

Novgorod State Museum-Reserve, КП 44022/304 (инв. А-195/304; Troitsky excavation) and КП 44219/381 (инв. А-201/381; Nikitinsky excavation, 2003); State Catalogue of the Museum Fund of the Russian Federation, reg. 10418676 and 8729656

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Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.