bribir excavation project: 2014 campaign excavation report
TRANSCRIPT
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Bribir Excavation Project 2014
Excavation report detailing the activities of the Australian team by Dr Victor Ghica (Mission Leader) and Dr Danijel Dzino (Deputy Mission
Leader)
Bribirska glavica – view on remains of the church of St Mary and the Franciscan monastery; in the
background, the Dinara mountain.
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Summary
Macquarie University started its own excavations at the hill-‐top locality of Bribirska glavica in Croatia, as the first Australian university ever to carry out archaeological digs in this country. The excavations are conducted in collaboration with the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments (MHAS) in Split, the Šibenik City Museum and other Croatian partners. The Bribir Excavation Project is planned to grow into a long-‐term collaborative project of Macquarie University, in particular between the Department of Ancient History and Croatian Studies. Apart from providing excellent opportunities for research and training of students, the project will strengthen already existing connections with Croatia through the discipline of Croatian Studies hosted in the Department of International Studies. In the long term, the aim of the project is to shed light on the dynamics of the occupation of Varvaria/Bribir prior to and during Late Antiquity and the period of the “Slav migrations” (7th-‐8th century). The project will consequently concentrate also on the interaction between the epichoric settlements of the inner area of littoral Dalmatia and the coastal cities, the evolution of urban planning from Roman patterns to medieval urbanism and the development of ecclesiastical institutions in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages.
Bribirska glavica from the air
In April 2014, a team of students from Macquarie University travelled to Croatia to participate in the opening season of excavations. They were led by Dr Victor Ghica (Mission leader, for Macquarie University), and Dr Danijel Dzino (Deputy Mission leader). In the 2014 campaign participated MA students Charles Barnett and Ashley
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Keith, and BA students Nicola Wesseling, Joel Mason, and Gregory Madden. They were joined by Shenali Boange, MA student from Sydney University.
The archaeological team comprised: Yann Béliez (archaeologist, ArcheoDoc), Dr Andrea Di Miceli and Dr Tommaso Matioli (geophysicists, ArcheoRes Research Group and Centro di Eccellenza S.M.A.Art, Università degli Studi di Perugia), and Per Rathsman (architect, Rathsman ArkitektKontor AB). From the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments participated Dr Ante Milošević (Mission leader for the Croatian side of the project) and Nikolina Uroda (archaeologist), while Šibenik City Museum was represented by Željko Krnčević. The team was also joined by two pottery experts, Dr Ivana Ožanić Roguljić and Dr Kristina Jelinčić Vučković (Institute for Archaeology in Zagreb), Professor Darja Grosman (University of Ljubljana) and undergraduate students Katarina Franušić and Merita Dreshaj (University of Zagreb).
Standing: Nicola Wesseling, Ashley Keith, Shenali Boange, Katarina Franušić, Victor Ghica, Gregory Madden,
Yann Béliez. Kneeling: Charles Barnett, Danijel Dzino
Significance of the site
Bribirska glavica is one of the largest and best preserved archaeological sites in Western Balkans, dubbed by the pioneering Croatian archaeologist Lujo Marun “Croatia’s Troy”. It is located in the hinterland of littoral Dalmatia, 20 km from the Adriatic coast, near the city of Šibenik and the township of Skradin. The ca. 72,000 m2 hilltop on which the site stretches was inhabited without interruption from the Bronze Age through the 18th-‐19th century AD. With its own supply of water, it has a perfect
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strategic position, controlling the Krka river and the eastern side of the Ravni Kotari plains.
Excavations at Bribir were first carried out between 1910 and 1913 by Lujo Marun, pioneer of the Croatian medieval archaeology. These short campaigns were followed between 1959 and 1980 by twenty-‐two excavation seasons directed by the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments (MHAS) in Split. In the 1980s, the site was excavated by Šibenik City Museum. The war in Croatia (1991-‐1995) caused significant damage to the site, which fell to neglect, which is why all the work done after 1995 focused on conservation and small-‐scale excavations done by MHAS and the Šibenik museum. At this moment, only around ca. 20,000 m2 of the site have been excavated, with ca. 50,000 m2 remaining untouched.
History of the site
The settlement on Bribirska Glavica starts in the Bronze Age, although a Neolithic settlement has been located just below the Glavica hill, in Krivače. During the Iron Age a defensive wall made of megalithic stone blocks was constructed by the local community, which contemporary sources call Varvarini. During the Roman occupation, the fortified settlement becomes a municipium (township) under the name Varvaria. To this period date numerous finds: houses with water tanks (piscinae), roads carved in bedrock, inscriptions, etc. Perhaps the most representative find is a nymphaeum – fountain dedicated to the Nymphs – paved with mosaics. Apart from the discovery of a Christian memoria containing two sarcophagi, dated in ca. AD500, Late Antiquity is poorly documented at Bribir. From the early Middle Ages are known three row-‐grave cemeteries belongining to the ‘Old Croat’ culture and a six-‐apsed church, reexcavated in 2014 by our team. In the 10th century, Varvaria, now called Breberi, emerges in written sources as a county (županija) of the early feudal Croatian kingdom.
The greatest days of Breberi occurred in the period 1273-‐1322. In the interregnum between the Árpád and the Angevin dynasties of the Hungarian kingdom, the local family of the Šubići achieved the de facto independence from royal power. Pavao (Paul) I Šubić (1273-‐1312) and his son Mladen II (1312-‐1322) held the title of Croatian viceroy (ban), and ruled over Dalmatia, Hum (Herzegovina) and Bosnia. Pavao styled himself as Paulus de Breberio banus Croatorum Dominus et Bosnae (Pavao of Breberi, viceroy of the Croats and the lord of Bosnia). After the fall of Mladen II Šubić, Breber loses progressively its importance and becomes a small regional urban centre, seat of the now low rank noble family of Šubići. From this golden period date the remains of the Franciscan monastery with its gothic church dedicated to St Mary. Numerous other monuments, such as the smaller gothic church (perhaps of St John) or an older romanesque church dated in the 11th-‐12th century complete the particularly rich architectural repertoire of the site.
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Pavao (Paul) I Šubić with his wife. Detail from the chest of St Šimun (Simon) in Zadar
In 1523, the Ottoman Turks captured the fort, expelling the population and maintaining a small military garrison on the site. Breberi, now Bribir, was taken by the Venetians in 1684, who settled on the Glavica hill Orthodox refugees from Bosnia. The new settlers move down the hill in the 18th and 19th centuries in the modern-‐day village of Bribir, so the site remained uninhabited, with only the Orthodox church of SS Joachim and Ann and the surrounding village cemetery being still in use.
The 2014 campaign
The first Macquarie University campaign lasted for 22 days and focused on revisiting the previous excavation of the early medieval church lying below the late Baroque church of SS Joachim and Ann. The main purpose of the dig was to revise the earlier excavations of Stjepan Gunjača from the 1960s, whose results are unpublished. Our team concentrated in particular on the relationship between this church and the late antique memoria with sarcophagi, located in the Orthodox cemetery around the church, a few meters from the early medieval church. The excavations clarified the architectural connection between three apses of the early medieval church and the late antique walls of the memoria, which will be explored further in the next campaigns. The excavations corrected and supplemented the assumptions of the earlier excavators and established proper stratigraphic sequences between the High Middle Age level and the late antique buildings.
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Work in one of the trenches, with a view of two apses of the early medieval church
In addition, a geophysical survey of all unexcavated areas of the site (ca. 50,000 m2) has been carried out with a gradiometer and ground penetrating radar (GPR) in order to establish a map of buried structures to be used in setting our strategy for future excavation seasons. Conducted by Dr Di Miceli and Mattioli, the survey revealed a series of buildings and elements of the road network, which suggest major changes in our understanding of the site.
Dr Mattioli and Di Miceli performing the magnetic survey
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The architectural survey done by P. Rathsman resulted in a first set of digitised 3D models of several excavated areas (the Franciscan monastic complex, including the church of St Mary, two Ottoman defensive towers and the early medieval church reexcavated by our team).
The two sarcophagi still in situ in the early Christian memoria were opened, one of them revealing bones of four different individuals, very likely a secondary deposit, dating perhaps from the Middle Ages. Samples of this osteologic material are currently being processed in view of radiocarbon analysis.
A new set of aerial photographs has also been realised by Dr Ghica and Prof. Grosman, who are preparing a new photogrammetric model of the site. Dr Ožanić Roguljić and Jelinčić Vučković were in charge of the study of the ceramic. Along with cataloguing and photographing the shards, they launched a database of local clays, which will be subjected to compositional analysis in the coming years in order to obtain a reliable catalogue of clays.
Samples of clay from our trenches are currently being analysed for optically stimulated luminiscence dating, while the bones found in the sarcophagus were sent for examination to the Department of Anthropology of the Croatian Academy of Humanities and Sciences (HAZU).
Last but not least, a database of all existing finds coming from Bribir was started, providing for the first time the opportunity to have access to information about the numerous objects unearthed on the site and scattered now in several Croatian museums. An archaeological database of our excavation has also been created.
Opening of the sarcophagi from the early Christian memoria
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Student participation
Macquarie University students showed themselves in best light during the campaign. Apart from participating in the proper excavation, they were trained in the basics of archaeological work and tools, stratigraphy and the use of gradiometer and GPR, and had the opportunity to work together with Croatian experts and students. They also learned more about Croatia and Dalmatia, including even some basic Croatian vocabulary. A few students also chose to stay in Croatia before or after the excavations, enjoying one of the most popular destinations in the world.
Apart from the work on the site, weekend tours were organised for the students and other participants in the excavations. The students visited the Renaissance city of Šibenik, famous for the cathedral of Sveti Jakov (St Jacob) built by masters Juraj Dalmatinac (Giorgio da Sebenico) and Nikola Firentinac (Niccolò di Giovanni Fiorentino), and the late antique site of Srima, with its double basilica (basilica gemina). Finally, the Macquarie team visited Salona (Solin), the capital of Roman Dalmatia, as well as the world famous UNESCO-‐protected site of Diocletian’s palace in Split.
Student accommodation
One of the great advantages of Bribirska glavica excavations is that accommodation is actually provided at the site, for free, two minutes walk from the excavation place. Previous excavators Lujo Marun and Stjepan Gunjača purposely built two houses for accommodation of future archaeologists. The houses are equipped with all comfort, including kitchen, hot water, toilets, showers and washing machine. The students also enjoyed in great Croatian food, which was professionally delivered at the site directly from the restaurant Visovac in Skradin. One day was even prepared a local Dalmatian speciality – lamb on the spit.
Media outreach
The site was visited by the Australian ambassador, HE Susan Cox, a constant supporter of our excavations. She was accompanied by representatives from the Croatian Ministry of Culture, the State Office for the Croats abroad, Split-‐Dalmatia county, the president of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, the mayor of Skradin, etc.
The first season of the excavations attracted significant attention from Croatian media. A TV report about the excavations, including short statements of Dr Ghica, Dr Dzino and the ambassador Cox, was broadcasted on Channel 4 of the Croatian National Television (HRT), and next day reprised on Channel 1 in prime time evening program on culture. The daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija from Split reported about the visit of the ambassador, HE Susan Cox and also published a large article about the excavations. The article about the excavations was published in Croatian weekly Actual, and in Australian-‐Croatian weekly Boka CroPress. Dr Dzino gave interviews to the weekly Slobodna Bosna from Sarajevo, the Croatian National Radio (Mostovi -‐ the program for Croatian diaspora) and the SBS radio-‐program in Croatian language. The
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excavations were also reported on archaeological websites Arheon.org and Arheologija.hr.
HE Ms Susan Cox with Dr Ghica and Dr Dzino visiting the excavation site
Our thanks
The excavations were conducted with funds provided by the Faculty of Arts and our Croatian partners from Split and Šibenik. In addition, the Croatian Studies Foundation from Sydney generously donated $5,000 for the fieldwork.
We want to thank in particular to
-‐ Professor John Simons, Deputy Vice-‐Chancellor (Academic) at Macquarie, former Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts
-‐ Dr Ian Plant, Head of Ancient History at Macquarie
-‐ Mr Luka Budak, Head of Croatian Studies
-‐ Mr John Gavljak (president) and the members of the governing council of the Croatian Studies Foundation
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For further details and information check out
Bribir Excavation project on Facebook (as Bribir Archaeology Group) https://www.facebook.com/bribirarchaeologygroup
Contact: Dr Victor Ghica Building W6A, 541 Faculty of Arts, Department of Ancient History Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia [email protected] Dr Danijel Dzino Builiding W6A, 506 Faculty of Arts, Department of Ancient History Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia [email protected]