Preliminary communication
Catalogue of Stone ScuIpture from the Area of Kula Atlagića
Nikolina Uroda
orcid.org/0000-0002-9227-7693
; Muzej hrvatskih arheoloških spomenika
Abstract
The village of Kula Atlagića is located 4km north-west of Benkovac in the direction of the medieval road via Magna which passed through the Zadar hinterland. The name of the village was first mentioned as late as the 17th century, while older documents mention two Croatian villages in that area: TihIići and Bojište (Bojišće). In today's village stand three churches: two Orthodox dedicated to St Nicholas and one Catholic dedicated to St Peter. The two churches are mentioned in the archaeological literature at the beginning of the 20lh century. The church of St Nicholas in the Orthodox graveyard was completed in 1447 as witnessed by the inscription on the transom of the side portal, while the church of St Peter bears early Romanesque features, although it was destroyed several times during its turbulent history. The stone fragments which are presented in the catalogue were gathered over a long period of time. Some were brought to Knin on the prompting of Fra Lujo Marun while most of the sculptures were gathered after the Homeland War from the ruins of the church of St Peter, into which they had been incorporated as building material, and brought to the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments in Split. According to their stylistic characteristics, the sculptures are divided into different groups: ancient, early medieval and early Romanesque. The problem which arose during the work on the sculptures was the attribution of individual groups to a particular object. The ancient sculptures could have belonged to a temple or shrine to the Roman god Liber which was probably located in the area around the church of St Nicholas as evidenced by entries in the diary of Fra Lujo Marun, who on several occasions made notes on both churches and the areas around them. The early medieval sculpture shows different characteristics and we could suppose that the earlier sculptures in this group were replaced by new furniture donated by some worthy benefactor. The question remains open as to where the early medieval church to which this furniture belonged was located. Numerous authors suppose that an early medieval church, which was in the 15'h century or earlier replaced by a new one, was situated on the site of today's church of St Nicholas in the Orthodox graveyard. Because the investigations on this site have not been completed, we are left only with suppositions which could be confirmed by archaeological work. The fragments of early Romanesque sculpture are very specific and it is not possible to find close parallel s for them. The sculpture could be connected to the church of St Peter which was founded prior to the 12'b century, but investigations carried out in 1997 showed that this building had only one building phase and we cannot therefore talk of the possibility of the existence of an earlier church, at least not in the investigated area inside the church and in its immediate area. Translation: Nicholas Philip Saywell
Keywords
Kula Atlagića; St Peter; St Nicholas; sculpture; Tempiars
Hrčak ID:
81473
URI
Publication date:
10.12.2007.
Visits: 2.216 *