Alleged Jewish cemetery bones ‘not burials’

Aug 29, 2008
In cooperation with BNS

Head of Israel Geophysics Ariehas Kleinas is tasked with monitoring the controversial excavation (Photo by Vytenis Petrosius, alfa.lt)

Members of the Jewish community have repeatedly expressed their indignation over the construction of an apartment complex on top of what they claim is the edge of a Jewish cemetery.

However, Zenonas Baubonis, head of the Lithuanian Archaeological Society, said that the bones found at the site in a dig in July were not from burials. He said the bones were found a mere 20 to 30 centimeters underground and that they were not aligned in a fashion that would indicate burial.

“The unearthed layer with the findings may have formed from surrounding soil or may have been brought from other locations as construction ruins,” the Archaeological Society said in a letter to the Baltic News Service.

“The discovered fragments of human bones make it impossible to determine religious, cultural or ethnic [heritage] of the dead people,” the letter said.

News of halted tests was announced by the Cultural Heritage Department, which said that “fragments of household ceramics and shattered glass, parts of metal items, single human and animal bones not in anatomical positions” were found some 20 to 30 centimeters under the surface.

Senior state inspector of the Cultural Heritage Department, Renaldas Augustinavicius, said last week that the archeological tests would be resumed in September. In his words, Jewish experts had not yet decided on further actions regarding the findings.

The bones were found on the first day of digging.

Archeologists started the dig in the central suburb of Vilnius on July 23. The dig will supplement the material gathered by Israeli geophysicists to determine precisely where the boundary of the cemetery is and whether a luxurious apartment building is now covering part of it.

The dig is being carried out by Lithuanian archeologists under the supervision of rabbis delegated from the Committee for Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe and Israeli geophysicists who finished surveying the territory with their instruments a month ago.

With LGC participation, the Israeli company Geotec conducted a geophysical survey on the territory of the Jewish cemetery in early July. The Lithuanian government paid for the survey, which cost around 350,000 litas (101,450 euros).

The cemetery had been active in the center of Vilnius since the 16th century, but was shut down in the 19th century and dismantled in mid-20th century. Once it was closed, the Jewish community received a monetary compensation from the then administration of the Russian czar.

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