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Archaeological Excavations at the Crkvari-St. Lawrence Church site 2009
Tatjana Tkalčec
orcid.org/0000-0003-3963-7706
; Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
At the beginning of September 2009, the Institute of Archaeology continued the excavations of the medieval cemetery and the hill fort with the Church of St. Lawrence in Crkvari, near Orahovica. During archaeological excavations in a bell-tower unearthed during archaeological excavations of 2008, on the basis of the stratigraphy and the construction sequence of the architectural sacral complex, it was observed that the bell-tower with strong buttresses was built on a threenave Gothic church which in its previous stage used to be a single-nave hall church. All layers and tombs in the bell-tower, all the way to sterile soil, were excavated. The dig therefore reached a depth of 2.30 m. The inside dimensions of the bell-tower are 3.5 m (E–W) x 2.4 m (N–S), and the outside dimensions are 4.70 m (E–W, up to the wall SU 689) x 5 m (N–S). The southern and northern foundation walls are 140 cm wide, while the western are narrower – 1.20 m. The wider northern and southern walls have deeper foundations, while the western is shallower. In the corners, the bell-tower ends in powerful buttresses, 1.23 m or 1.30 m wide, and 2 m long. The foundations are built of irregular, richly rendered stones. Since around the bell-tower, in the upper layers of rubber and ruins, fragments of profiled pieces of bricks and stones in the classical late Gothic style were found, we can assume that the bell-tower was erected in the 15th century. The firm foundations, additionally strengthened also with buttresses, fit with this dating. Possibly the extension of the single-nave early Gothic church into a three-nave church with buttresses, as well as the additional construction of the northern sacristy and the western bell-tower, took place simultaneously or shortly one after the other, given that all elements were built in the same style.
On the basis of grave finds and other factors, it was concluded that the bell-tower was in function also in the modern age. In the bell-tower, 38 graves were excavated, which accounts for a total of 271 excavated graves. Along with late mediaeval 15th century graves – from the period when the bell-tower was built – and with early modern age graves – from the period when the bell-tower was still in function – older graves were found as well. Among them are burials from the period before the large Gothic three-nave sacral complex with the powerful bell-tower was built. These graves are from the 13th and 14th centuries, and there is also an older horizon with cemeteries from the 11th–13th centuries.
Keywords
archaeological excavations; Crkvari; St. Lawrence Church; cemetery; medieval hill fort; Early Middle Ages; Late Middle Ages; early modern age
Hrčak ID:
64733
URI
Publication date:
3.3.2011.
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