Original scientific paper
Grave from Donja Dolina with crested fibulae – whence, how and when did they reach the River Sava
Marko Dizdar
orcid.org/0000-0003-3964-9002
; Institute of Archaeology
Hrvoje Potrebica
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb
Abstract
Even after more than a hundred years of research, the
biritual cemetery in Donja Dolina is still the cornerstone for
studying the complex interactions of the Early Iron Age communities
inhabited in the south of the Pannonian Plain with
those from the neighbouring areas, primarily the western and
central Balkans in the south, the south-eastern Alps in the
west, and the Danube region in the east. Previous studies of
the cemetery in Donja Dolina have mostly been focused on
prestigious items of warriors’ defensive equipment and bronze
vessels. However, the cemetery in Donja Dolina is unlike any
other contemporaneous site because of its unique combinations
of various items of female costume and jewellery that
perfectly reveal the complexity of the established contact networks.
One such burial unit is the cremation grave 16 at greda
I. Stipančević, in which the cremated remains of an apparently
young woman were placed in an urn, together with various
costume and jewellery items. Two crested fibulae are parts of costume. A detailed typological analysis revealed that they
had been imported from Glasinac. It still remains open whether
these objects reached Donja Dolina in the mid-sixth century
BC by cultural transfer, or the fibulae, as parts of the costume,
were brought by the person who wore them. Another fibula
in grave 16 – a bronze fibula with two loops and a square
foot with two openings – also demonstrates an orientation
towards Glasinac, as do a number of other items of female
costume and jewellery from the cemetery in Donja Dolina. The
crested fibulae were analysed and found to be a heterogeneous
group with three separate types – Ražana, Pod and Zabrnjica
– distinctive parts of female costume as they were worn
by girls or adult women. Their distribution has mostly been
recorded at Glasinac, but they have also been documented on
sites from Donja Dolina in the north to northern Albania in the
south, whereas the fibulae of the Pod and Zabrnjica types indicate
a noticeably local distribution.
Keywords
Donja Dolina, cemetery, crested fibulae, female costume, Early Iron Age, cultural transfer, mobility
Hrčak ID:
271175
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2021.
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