Live Science, using Novgorod State University, says a summer dig in the old town between Moscow and St. Petersburg recovered a two-faced copper-alloy pendant from the 11th century. One side shows a armed holy figure holding a lance and a shield; the other a woman's head with snake-like hair. Toropov tied the front to St. Theodore Stratelates. Four earlier local examples sat in the 12th to 14th centuries.
Live Science, using a Novgorod State University statement, says a summer dig in the old town between Moscow and St. Petersburg recovered a two-faced copper-alloy pendant. One side shows an armed holy figure holding a lance and a shield. The other shows a woman's head whose hair reads as snakes. The university called the object the oldest of this type yet found in that region.[1]
Sergey Toropov, who directs the university's archaeological research centre, tied the front to St. Theodore Stratelates. Live Science adds that the reverse is not firmly the Greek Medusa; the identification stays open. That caution is the magazine's, not a second excavation report. Spear, shield and snake-like hair are the visual facts the magazine repeats from that statement. Toropov is quoted as the director, not as an unaffiliated specialist.[1]
Four earlier pendants from Christian sites nearby had been placed in the 12th to 14th centuries. This one came out of layers the university dates to the 11th century, which that statement reads as a Christian community earlier than those later finds implied. Live Science posted the account on 17 September 2026. Layer dating to the 11th century is the university's reading of the stratigraphy. The older-than-the-other-four claim stands or falls with that dating.[1]
