Half-Grivna

The half-grivna of Novgorod (½ grivna) dated back to the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries comes from the territory of former Ruthenia. The grivna is one of the medieval precious metals, in the shape of a bar or a rod, cast from high-purity silver. In the 11th–14th centuries, during the period of Ruthenia’s territorial fragmentation, after the death of Yaroslav the Wise, there were several types of them – the Kiev, the Novgorod, the Chernikhiv, the Lithuanian, and the Volga ones. They differed not only in shape, but also in weight – depending on the different weight systems prevailing in the areas neighboring Ruthenia. Our half-grivna weighs 98.18 g and measures 69.8 by 14.5 by 14.4 mm. On one of the shorter sides there is an evident trace of a break or cut. The grivnas of Ruthenia were chopped into halves or smaller fragments to obtain units of lower value. Hence, from the Ruthenia’s word “rubit” (to chop) came the name of the later Russian ruble, mentioned for the first time in the so-called birch bark letter dated to 1281–1289, i.e. on a written piece of birch bark, found during excavations in Nowogród in 1952.