Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/yrvgqtkw69
Grave Entity 40 from the Early Medieval Cemetery Zvonimirovo–Veliko polje
Željko Tomičić
; Croatian academy of sciences and art, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper focuses on the importance of the grave entity 40 discovered in 2004 within the early medieval graveyard of the Bijelo Brdo culture in the Veliko polje area near Zvonimirovo village in Suhopolje municipality. By analyzing the grave inventory, the author tries to recognize the time frame of deceased's burial - the girl, dressed in rich ornaments of garland garments. On the basis of related comparative findings in the interspace between rivers Mura, Drava, Danube and Sava and in the neighboring part of the Carpathian Basin, the sociological characteristics of the deceased, i.e the status within the tribal community and its artistic and craftmanship and cultural affiliations are being identified. The massive inventory is a very important card in the complex and distinctive mosaic of the Bjelo Brdo cultural circle. The rural community buried their deceased in a cemetery on the Veliko polje (Great Field) for at least two to three consecutive generations, i.e at intervals of 25-30 years, from the first decades of the 10th to the end of the 11th century. This fact allows a realistic assumption that the life of rural community took place during the course of the 10th century and probably earlier. Finally, specimens of embellishment of the headgear and hatchlings of the deceased garments discovered in the gravestone 40 can be reliably dated to the beginning of the early Phase I stage of the Bjelo Brdo culture. This in our case specifically means the beginning of the burial in the Veliko polje area near Zvonimirova village. Here we call the phase of burial called Zvonimirovo I. We are traying to give indications of the typological-chronological framework of the inventory discovered in the grave entity 40 then the period of the reign of Croatian kings Mihajlo Krešimir II (969), Stjepan Držislav (997) and Mihajla Krešimir III (1000-1030), the Hungarian duks Taksony (972) and Geza (997), and their first King Stjepan I the Saint (997-1030). At the same time this framework is determined by the Byzantine Emperors Roman II, Nikifor and John Cimisk (969-976), Basil II. (976-1025) and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from Oton I Great (962-973) to Konrad II. (1027th to 1039th).
Keywords
Zvonimirovo–Veliko polje cemetery; jewelery of headgear; decoration of clothes; birthplace; burial in rows; early Middle Ages; Bjelo Brdo Cultural Circle; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
238637
URI
Publication date:
15.1.2020.
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