Original scientific paper
Preliminary Results of Excavations in Zadar Cathedral in 2006 and 2007
Jakov Vučič
; Arheološki muzej Zadar
Abstract
This paper reports on and discusses preliminary results of research into the eastern end of the northern nave of Zadar Cathedral in 2006 and 2007. During these excavations, strata telling of human activity from the Iron Age to the beginning of the 19th century were laid bare. The Classical and Late Roman periods were represented in three building horizons.
The earliest horizon comprises the remains of three walls, Walls 1, 2 and 6, with their pertaining walking surfaces. Walls 1 and 2 are parallel to each other, and are placed perpendicularly to the direction of the main city decumanus; they are 45 cm thick and 545 cm distant from each other. These walls belong to the ground floor rooms of the structure marked on the plan as spaces A, B and C, which followed the rhythm of the tabernae of the Forum, but were to the north of the forum and were open onto the decumanus. The construction of this horizon was contemporary with that of the forum and can be dated to the beginning of the 1st century BC. At the end of the 2nd or early in the 3rd century the taberna in space B was abandoned and refuse was deposited there.
The building horizon subsequently formed in this space was raised above the previous by 30 to 60 cm; it consists of Wall 2B, floor SU8 and walking surface SU39. On the site occupied by at least two tabernae along the main city street, in this phase a substantial structure with a cement floor was built. The walls and ceiling of the structure were entirely decorated with frescos. This horizon might have been put up in the second half of the 4th or the first half of the 3rd century. There was most probably a short period from the abandonment of the tabernae to the construction of the new building, for this was the very centre of the city.
The dating of this building horizon to the first half of the 3rd century would tend to be supported by the hypothesis of M. Suić that at this time, after the previous 1st century constructions, there were new departures in the city, at which time the Basilica Severiana, as it is called, was put up. At the beginning of the 5th century, the structure built in the Severan period of in the second half of the 4th century was removed according to a plan for the space to be used for the building of a spacious Early Christian cathedral. Remaining from this latter structure, apart from the footings of the walls, is a floor richly decorated with mosaics.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
240659
URI
Publication date:
29.6.2020.
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