In the privilege of King Casimir Jagiellon of 1463, the boundary of the town ran at the bottom of Antakalnis hill. The territory stretching up the hill belonged to St. Nicholas Church and in 1624 a Benedictine convent was established next to the church. Documents from the 16-17th centuries mention the windmill and brickyard on the hill above the church. Lower, around the location of the contemporary Pakopos (Steps) path, there was most probably a wooden town wall with gates to the River Neris. There was a cemetery established around the church. Archaeological research has revealed that the layers and burials around the church were largely destroyed. During the archaeological research on Benediktinių St. a cultural layer up to 1.8 m thick was discovered, the layer had been excavated before and had mixed human bone remains and some indications of rectangular graves. It isn’t known why the graveyard graves had been disturbed this way.

Mindaugas Bertašius