Late Medieval Tombstones (Stecci)
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Dejan Vemi ć LATE MEDIEVAL TOMBSTONES (STE ĆCI) IN THE AREA OF ŽABLJAK, MONTENEGRO MA Thesis in Medieval Studies Central European University CEU eTD Collection Budapest June 2011 LATE MEDIEVAL TOMBSTONES (STE ĆCI) IN THE AREA OF ŽABLJAK, MONTENEGRO by Dejan Vemi ć (Serbia) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Medieval Studies Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU ____________________________________________ Chair, Examination Committee ____________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________________ Examiner ____________________________________________ Examiner CEU eTD Collection Budapest June 2011 i LATE MEDIEVAL TOMBSTONES (STE ĆCI) IN THE AREA OF ŽABLJAK, MONTENEGRO by Dejan Vemi ć (Serbia) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Medieval Studies Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU ____________________________________________ External Examiner CEU eTD Collection Budapest June 2011 ii LATE MEDIEVAL TOMBSTONES (STE ĆCI) IN THE AREA OF ŽABLJAK, MONTENEGRO by Dejan Vemi ć (Serbia) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Medieval Studies Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU ________________________ Supervisor ____________________________________________ External Supervisor CEU eTD Collection Budapest June 2011 iii I, the undersigned, Dejan Vemi ć, candidate for the MA degree in Medieval Studies declare herewith that the present thesis is exclusively my own work, based on my research and only such external information as properly credited in notes and bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of others, and no part of the thesis infringes on any person’s or institution’s copyright. I also declare that no part of the thesis has been submitted in this form to any other institution of higher education for an academic degree. Budapest, June 2011 CEU eTD Collection iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 1 1. AN OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON STE ĆCI ............................................. 5 2. HOW AND WHY WERE STE ĆCI MADE? ........................................................................ 10 2.1. Foundations of ste ćci ......................................................................................................... 10 2.2. Construction of the Graves ................................................................................................ 11 2.3. The Motifs.......................................................................................................................... 14 2.4. The Bogomil Hypothesis ................................................................................................... 17 2.5. The Vlach Hypothesis........................................................................................................ 18 2.6. The Social Status Hypothesis............................................................................................. 20 2.7. The shapes – their origins and influences.......................................................................... 21 3. THE REGION BETWEEN TARA AND PIVA RIVERS IN MONTENEGRO DURING THE LATE MIDDLE AGES: A GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 23 4. LATE MEDIEVAL STE ĆCI IN THE AREA OF ŽABLJAK ............................................ 25 4.1. “Greek Graveyard” (Gr čko groblje) .................................................................................. 25 4.2. The late medieval cemetery of Novakovi ći ....................................................................... 27 4.3. The late medieval cemetery of Bare Žugi ća ...................................................................... 30 4.4. Cross-shaped monuments .................................................................................................. 34 4.5. The motifs on ste ćci in the area of Žabljak........................................................................ 37 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 54 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 57 CATALOGUE ............................................................................................................................. 63 ILLUSTRATIONS ...................................................................................................................... 70 CEU eTD Collection v LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1. Locality Bijeli Mramor, dislocated monument. Fig. 2. Locality Bijeli Mramor, dislocated monument (drawing by Dejan Vemi ć). Fig. 3. Locality Bijeli Mramor, cross-shaped monument. Fig. 4. Locality Bijeli Mramor, cross-shaped monument. Fig. 5. Locality Bijeli Mramor, cross-shaped monument; detail. Fig. 6. Locality Bijeli Mramor, cross-shaped monument (drawing by Dejan Vemi ć). Fig. 7. Locality Bijeli Mramor, cross-shaped monument (drawing by Hermann Sterneck). Fig. 8. Locality Novakovi ći (situational plan-drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 9. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 3. Fig. 10. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 4. Fig. 11. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 6. Fig. 12. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 6. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 13. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 7. Fig. 14. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 10. Fig. 15. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 18. Fig. 16. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 23. Fig. 17. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 49. Fig. 18. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 49. (drawings by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 19. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 59. Fig. 20. Locality Novakovići, monument no. 63. Fig. 21. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 63. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 22. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 63. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 23. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 71 . Fig. 24. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 71. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 25. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 74. Fig. 26. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 74. Fig. 27 Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 78. CEU eTD Collection Fig. 28 Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 78. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 29 Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 82. Fig. 30. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 82. (drawing by Dejan Vemi ć). Fig. 31. Locality Novakovi ći, monument no. 83. vi Fig. 32. Locality Novakovi ći (southern part of the cemetery). Fig. 33. Locality Novakovi ći (central part of the cemetery). Fig. 34. Locality Novakovi ći (northern part of the cemetery). Fig. 35. Locality Bare Žugi ća (situational plan-drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 36. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 49. (photo by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 37. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 49. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 38. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 22. Fig. 39. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 22. Fig. 40. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 33. Fig. 41. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 33. Fig. 42. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 39. Fig. 43. Locality Bare Žugi ća. monument no. 40. Fig. 44. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 48. Fig. 45. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 49. Fig. 46. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 50. Fig. 47. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 50. Fig. 48. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 53. Fig. 49. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 60. Fig. 50. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 61. Fig. 51. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 61. (drawings by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 52. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 75. Fig. 53. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 75. (drawings by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 54. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 79. Fig. 55. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 79. (drawing by Šefik Bešlagi ć). Fig. 56. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 81. Fig. 57. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 83. Fig. 58. Locality Bare Žugi ća, monument no. 83. Fig. 59. Locality Bare Žugi ća (situation of the cemetery). CEU eTD Collection vii INTRODUCTION Ste ćak (sing.) or ste ćci (pl.) are late medieval tombstones found in the western Balkans, predominantly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, southern Croatia, northern Montenegro, and western Serbia (see Map 1). They are a unique phenomenon. Unlike antique sarcophagi, ste ćci are pseudo-sarcophagi; they are solid blocks of stone positioned on top of graves. They appear in the shape of slabs, trunks, crosses, and pillars; the shape most similar to antique sarcophagi is the high pseudo-sarcophagus (with a “roof”). 1 The term ste ćak itself literally means standing tombstone . It is the term mainly used by scholars and in the scholarly literature, while the local inhabitants usually call them by folkloric terms such as Greek graveyards , Hungarian graveyards , limestones , stones , and graves .2 In older, mostly popular, literature these monuments were also known as Bogomil gravestones for their supposed association with the medieval Bogomil cult. Although ste ćci have been investigated for more than a century and thousands of them have been