Mramorje Necropolis Perucac

Emina Zečević – National Museum in Belgrade: THREE MRAMORJE SITES IN THE SURROUNDINGS OF BAJINA BAŠTA – FIRST EXCAVATIONS

During 2010, 2014 and 2015 trench archaeological excavations were conducted on three Late Medieval necropolises with stone tombstones in the surroundings of Bajina Bašta. All three of them have been recorded under the same toponym of Mramorje. Excavations of these necropolises, registered in scientific literature as necropolises of stećak (plural: stećci), represent the first planned and professionally conducted excavations of necropolises with tombstones on the right bank of the river Drina, namely in the area of the middle Drina River basin for which there are almost no data from historical sources.

Although being of a small extent, these excavations had multiple results – discovering a number of previously unknown monuments, providing the first data on burying under stećci in this part of the Drina River basin, but also a reliable confirmation of creation of necropolises with specific shapes of tombstones such as slemenjak in this territory, in the middle, that is, in the second half of the 15th century. A special importance lies in the fact that Mramorje in Svojdrug represents the first Late Medieval necropolis with tombstones, not only in the middle Drina basin, but in a wider area, along the right bank of the Drina, next to which was discovered a church building

Excavations at the site of Mramorje in Perućac, with 85 visible tombstones on the surface, were realized in two trenches (I and II). Six tombstones were removed (No 1-4 and 52-53) and six graves lying beneath them were researched (graves 1-4, 6-7). The other completely (5 and 8) or partly (grave 9) excavated graves were discovered in the space between the tombstones and the edges of another five pits which were not evacuated were identified next to them. Simple deeply buried pits (up to the depth of 1,6 m), contained skeleton remains of the deceased placed on their back with arms crossed on the belly and covered by a thick board. Two silver coins were discovered in two graves – one of them belongs to the mintage of the Serbian despot Đurđe Branković (1427-1456), and the other one probably to the mintage of the Bosnian ruler Stefan Tomaš (1443-1461). There were no other grave findings in the graves, except several ruinous and small pottery shards found around the skeleton in the grave 8. «Beds» made of piled stones were found below two quite massive examples of slemenjak (No 52-53).

Mramorje in Perućac is one of the three necropolises from the territory of Serbia which were placed on the List of World Heritage Sites by the decision of the UNESCO Committee in July 2016 within a project of interstate serial nomination of stećci. At the site Pod Mramorjem in the village of Dobrotin, before the beginning of excavations in 2014, there were only five tombstones visible on the surface (No 1-3, 5-6), all of which were examples of slemenjak with stand. In four trenches (I-IV) the terrain surrounding the visible tombstones was irst lowered to the original level so that by the end of the excavations, deep under the present surface of the terrain, another four tombstones were discovered in the surroundings – three examples of slemenjak and a trunk, all of them with stands – among which one slemenjak decorated by a relief motif of half-moon. Namely, the tombstones are covered by up to 1,5 m thick layer of alluvial deposit formed through several previous decades due to flooding of the two rivers surrounding the terrace underneath the necropolis. Seven graves have been researched –three graves under three newly discovered tombstones (graves 2, 4, 5) and four in the spaces around and between gravestone markers (graves 1, 3, 6 and 7), all of them without grave findings. Traces of earlier digging under the tombstones have been noticed in the profile above the grave 2, where 2-3 pottery shards were found next to the skeleton (Fig. 11). Under the stands of certain tombstones there were stone “beds“, while individual pieces of stone were discovered in four graves, a row of stones was found in the grave 4 and remains of a board in the grave 1. Double orientation of these graves represents an unusual phenomenon – southwest-northeast direction and vice versa, northeast – southwest.

Excavations at the site of Mramorje in the village of Svojdrug were limited to the surface of the hill representing a «mound» and the space that surrounds it, a plateau northeast to the hill with visible tombstones. Inside the trench I, placed west to this mount, there were discovered 14 tombstones at a small depth under the surface (out of a total of 45 discovered tombstones). Four graves were excavated (graves 1-4), one of which was under a trunk (No 14), while the others were found in the space between the tombstones (Fig. 15). Besides a shard of a glass bracelet and two circular iron rings in the grave 1, there were no other grave findings. Thanks to a trial trench placed transversally to the direction of spreading of the «mound», under the deposits of debris were discovered remains of walls of a single vessel church (ig. 16) which was renewed in a later phase by adding walls to form apses in its interior. Stylization of floral and geometrical ornaments appearing on the fresco paintings, preserved on a large quantity of small shards among debris of church ruins, including ornaments of tombstones erected next to its wall which are typical for stećci, speaks in favor of its dating to the Late Middle Ages.