Ostalo
Archaeological research of the St. John the Baptist Church in Ivanec in 2006
Juraj Belaj
Sažetak
As in the previous campaigns, in this year’s research on the site of Stari grad in Ivanec, the area around the sanctuary of the medieval church of St. John the Baptist (Fig. 1.) was excavated along with its immediate surroundings.
At the beginning of the research, the documentation and deconstruction of some of the more recent walls within the churchl sanctuary was undertaken, because individual layers, as well as the graves containing S-loops, lie under these walls (Belaj 2005). The walls had relatively shallow foundations and were bound very loosely.
Underneath the removed walls, different SU gradually began to emerge. In certain areas, a thin layer of white, loose, crumbled plaster was noticed. Soon it became clear that the thin plaster layer lies on a thicker, greasy, dark cultural layer. This layer had not been excavated up to now, but we are certainly dealing with the most interesting layer discovered up to the present day. It is intersected by graves, in which bodies of the deceased with S-loops (Fig. 2.) were discovered. It also seems older than the very walls of the sanctuary, the above mentioned plaster layers might have been created during the construction of the sanctuary. Similar dark layers were also discovered at similar heights, for instance, south of the sanctuary and in the SE corner of the sacristy. This layer had probably been created during an extended period of settlement in this area, which had occurred before the oldest graves recognized until present day. As this layer has not been researched more intensely up to now, it is still not possible to be dated with more precision. On the contacts of this layer with other SU, ceramic fragments have been collected, which place it to the 9th or 10th century.
Graves No. 22 and 25 were investigatedin their entirety. In grave No. 25, a ring made of white metal, in the form of an ordinary loop (PN 241), was discovered. At the similar level, somewhat more towards the north, grave No. 42 was discovered. The grave is placed in a hole in the ground tiled with larger stones, but no finds, parts of ornaments or clothes, were discovered within.
The mentioned cultural layer was also penetrated by other burials, for instance by a trench along the eastern part of the north wall: SU 476, a buried column, SU 460/475, and by a more recent child’s grave No. 41, which also partly intersects the hole made for the column SU 460.
South from the sanctuary, three graves were excavated. Like all the other graves discovered up to now, they also stretched in the direction E-W. Above a little bowl in the children’s grave No. 34, a metal object was discovered (probably an iron buckle, PN-233). Grave No. 35 was horizontally intersected by grave No. 36, therefore only the left side of an adult skeleton (Fig. 3.) has been preserved. In grave No. 3, a very well preserved and complete adult skeleton was found. In the area around the bowl, an iron buckle was discovered (PN-237).
In the sacristy, a more recent structure, the base, was first removed. Underneath, a row of stones was discovered − probably the remains of a tiling. Below, a layer very similar to the cultural layer from the sanctuary was discovered. Three graves were excavated in the sacristy. Two were children’s graves belonged to (graves No. 37 and 38). Grave No. 39 was discovered somewhat deeper under the base which had been removed, the eastern part of the skeleton was found under the east wall of the sacristy.
Ključne riječi
Ivanec; St. John the Baptist Church; Middle Ages; architecture; graves
Hrčak ID:
13237
URI
Datum izdavanja:
5.6.2007.
Posjeta: 1.633 *