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Archaeological Research of the Crkvari Site – the Church of St. Laurent in 2007
Tatjana Tkalčec
orcid.org/0000-0003-3963-7706
; Institute of archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In 2007, the Institute of Archaeology continued archaeological excavations of the medieval church with cemetery in Crkvari. In Late Middle Ages one turned the natural hill with the church on it into a hillfort by the building interventions (Fig. 1). In the excavations in 2007 we found built structures from the Middle Ages and modern age on the area of the church’s western front. We recorded and explored 60 graves. Within the room framed by the church, wall SJ 65 and walls SJ 442 and SJ 024/023 we explored the graves G 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 179, 181, 184, 185, 187, 188 (Fig. 2). They belong to the recent horizon of burial on the site. Some were superimposed on others. The first layer of burials on the western area explored this year belongs to the latest modern age layer. These are the graves G 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154 and 164. Some of them represent very late burials (mainly children’s graves immediately beside the church). To the same horizon probably belongs the grave G 163, which was buried in the backfills inside the tomb (which walls are made of the SJ 444 on the east and structures SJ 485 and SJ 486), as well as the lower graves G 200 and G 201. After the interment of the first burial layer, there follows a second layer of modern age graves whose pits also occasionally damage each other – G 155, 158, 159, 161, 162, 165, 166, 167 and 168 (Fig. 2).
A notable caesura in continuous burials is found in layer 508 (flooring or ostrakon?) and SJ 518 – collapses. Below these layers there follow the burials of an older horizon in several layers (Fig. 3). By contrast to modern age graves which contained rosaries as burial accessories, in this layer we found none, however there was evidence of clothing – folk dress and small bronze buckles and hooks. Of all the graves we must single out the grave G 199 in □ B7d. Its backfill differs from the rest and contains pure clay without any admixtures of detritus. The grave may belong to the oldest burial horizon.
Three graves within the northern sacristy were explored (G 141, 142 i 143). They belong to the oldest burial horizon on the site (Fig. 4).
Keywords
archaeological excavations; Crkvari; church of St. Laurent; cemetery; medieval hillfort; Late Middle Ages; modern age
Hrčak ID:
34039
URI
Publication date:
19.3.2009.
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