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MINSK, 9 August (BelTA) – Archaeologists uncovered a fragment of the construction plan dating back, presumably, to the turn of the 11^th - 12^th centuries during the archaeological and restoration works on the territory of St. Euphrosyne Monastery in Polotsk, according to the Orthodox information website sobor.by.

Scientists call the find a sensation. “No one has ever seen the drawings of the 12^th century," said Evgeny Torshin, a senior researcher at the State Hermitage. "The earliest known medieval construction plans date back to the end of the 13th century. Even Byzantine plans have not survived,” he noted.

It was believed that the construction plans appeared on the territory of Belarus in the 16^th century. The find refutes this information, said Alexander Soloviev, a senior researcher at the scientific and restoration department with the Polotsk Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve.

The find was discovered during the diggings on the site of the ancient temple-burial vault. The plinthite dating back to the end of the 11^th - early 12th century, which was part of the ancient building, depicts a fragment of the construction plan, presumably, of the temple-burial vault itself. The image has right proportions of the size of the building, reflects the thickness of walls and other clearly-drawn details. According to scientists, the plan was made by a highly skilled craftsman, who, perhaps, supervised the construction of the temple-burial vault. Scientists assume that the plinthite containing a full image was at least 30cm big. Probably, the plan was drawn by a pisalo (a thin stick) on the wet clay, after which it was kilned.

This find tells many new things about the construction industry of the late 11th-early 12th century, because so far there have been no construction plans of the 12th century. Archaeologists had doubts as to whether builders used plans at all. Earlier found drawings were sketchy, as the ones found, for example, during the archaeological excavations of the foundations of the Church of the Tithe.