CHAPTER 2 Stone Cists: Late Antique or Early Medieval?

There is no uniform or standard type of Old Croatian Stone cists are common during the second (or middle) grave or grave architecture. However, the links to the late horizon, especially in cemeteries between the Zrmanja antique burial rites and grave architecture are at best and the Trebišnjica.14 The younger part of the Stranče- ­tenuous.1 A number of authors have claimed that the sup- Gorica cemetery near Crikvenica includes plain inhuma- posed adoption of the late antique burial practices took tion pits, but blocks of roughly hewn stone have also been place in the late 8th or early 9th century,2 an opinion found in some graves, often around the pit. No true cist rejected by others who insisted on cultural discontinuity.­ 3 is known, however, from that cemetery. Plain inhumation Janko Belošević,4 on the other hand, believed that the pits are also known from Lika,15 Gomjenica near Prijedor, burial customs documented in 8th- and 9th-century cem- Junuzovci, Mahovljani, Petoševci, and Mihaljevići.16 eteries in Croatia were no different from those in the rest Stone-lined graves of rectangular (and not oval) shape of the “Slavic world.” To be sure, Belošević’s plain inhuma- appear in Istria, for example at Žminj.17 To date, the area tions, some in stone-lined pits, have many analogies dated between the Zrmanja and the Trebišnjica has the majority no later than the mid-9th century in the cemeteries of the of available on stone cists. In his study of the Mravince Sopronkőhida-Pitten-Pottenbrunn group in northwestern cemetery, Ljubo Karaman believed that plain inhumation Hungary and in Austria.5 Stone cists appear only occa- pits were the earliest form of grave employed by the early sionally at Kašić-Razbojine,6 Smilčić-Kulica, Medviđa, medieval Croats, who then adopted stone cists only after Stankovci,7 Velim,8 in the hinterland of Zadar,9 and at their conversion to Christianity around AD 800.18 Karaman Dubravice.10 Such cists appear in relatively larger num- believed that only analogies from within the Slavic world bers in valley of the Cetina river,11 but also at Mogorjelo were relevant for understanding early medieval forms of (Bosnia and Hercegovina) along the eastern rampart of graves in Croatia.19 the fort.12 The inspiration for such cists may have derived Š. Batović and O. Oštrić20 treated such forms of from graves with timber coffins, such as found in south- graves as an Illyrian (prehistoric) legacy. They pointed to western Slovakia during the Late Avar period.13 Mihaljevići and Nin–Ždrijac as examples of continuity from the ancient times. However, judging from the avail- able publication,21 in Mihaljevići there are clearly two distinct phases, with several grave superpositions, and 1 Batović-Oštrić 1969, 256. 2 Batović-Oštrić 1969, 255–259; Jelovina 1976, 76, 148; Belošević very different grave goods. Those were in fact two differ- 1980, 72, 133. ent cemeteries dated at a great distance in time from each 3 Čović 1969, 288, 299. other. The only thing they have in common is the loca- 4 Belošević 1980, 77. tion. In Nin–Ždrijac, there are Liburnian graves in square 5 Justová 1990, 224. stone cists underneath the westernmost section of the 6 Jelovina 1968a, 51. early medieval cemetery. They have been dated between 7 Belošević 1980, tab. XXXVII. the 9th and the 3rd century BC.22 The chronological gap 8 Jurić 2004a; Mezić 2004. between the first and the second cemetery is therefore 9 Jelovina (1976, 150) and Belošević (1980, 52, 74) wrongly date the graves in the environs of Zadar to the middle and second half considerable—more than a millennium. Continuity can of the 8th century. While stone-lined graves do indeed appear hardly be assumed under such circumstances. Nor can the in the “classical” Old Croatian horizon, they are restricted to the area east of the Neretva and up to the Župa. The end of that horizon around the middle of the 9th century coincides in 14 Sokol 1980a, 274; Sokol 1997a. time with cultural changes taking place in Moravia and west- 15 Ercegović 1960, 246. ern Slovakia (Budinský-Krička 1959, 35; Dostál 1966, 62, 68, 75, 16 Miletić 1989. 89–90; Marešová 1983, 116, 134; Hanuliak 2005, 30, 240), as well as 17 Marušić 1987a, 62–65. in northwestern Hungary (Justová 1990, 224). 18 Karaman 1940, 25–28 and 30. 10 Z. Gunjača 1995, 160. 19 Karaman 1940, 119. 11 Milošević 1990, 331. 20 Batović-Oštrić 1969, 256. 12 Čremošnik 1951b, 242. 21 Miletić 1956. 13 Točík 1968. 22 Batović 1970, 43; Belošević 1980, 25, tab. IV., pic. 1 and 2.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004306745_010 Stone Cists: Late Antique or Early Medieval? 127 western orientation of graves be taken as an indication of Jelovina28 similarly believed that the grave architecture in continuity from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, the region pointed to a “a semi-Romanized local Illyrian since such an orientation appears in many areas of early population.” His claims of continuity from Late Antiquity medieval Europe with no funerary traditions going back to the early Middle Ages are primarily based on the evi- to late antique practices. dence from three cemeteries, two of which have remained The survival of a native population in Dalmatia and unpublished to this day—Bijaći-St Martha, Danilo- the pre-Alpine region during between the late fifth and Šematorij, and Bribir-Vratnice.29 According to Jelovina, in the early seventh century has been postulated by Zdenko Danilo-Šematorij, 32 out of 403 excavated graves are of a Vinski.23 Vinski believed that the chronology of such late antique date, while only 5 out of 128 graves in Bribir- typical artifacts as bow fibulae, fibulae with bent stem, Vratnice cemetery have been dated to Late Antiquity. disc-shaped fibulae, various types of buckles and beads, Only in Bijaći-St. Martha is the percentage higher, namely and bracelets with animal-shaped heads strongly sup- 15 out of 28 newly discovered graves. Needless to say, that ported the idea of a contact between the native popu- late antique and medieval graves are found within one lation and the early Slavs. He was convinced therefore and the same cemetery site is no indication of continu- that early medieval cemeteries in Croatia reflected “the ity. Such a situation may be easily be explained in terms late antique tradition, especially in view of jewelry and of two burial phases (i.e., two separate cemeter, unless grave architecture”.24 But Janko Belošević’s dissertation the archaeological material bespeaks a gradual transition (of which Zdenko Vinski was the supervisor) later showed from the earliest to the latest burial assemblages. Out of that Vinski’s native material of late antique date is absent the five late antique graves in Bribir–Vratnice, one was from sites with early medieval cemeteries. The latter rep- a plain inhumation pit, while the others were pits lined resent therefore something completely new, linked to the with bricks or regularly hewn stones bonded with mor- Frankish world to the north, and not to the late antique tar.30 From the evidence published so far, it appears that traditions of the Mediterranean south. some of the early medieval graves lie on top of the late Branko Marušić25 has drawn the scholarly attention to antique ones burials.31 Nor is there any indication of an stone-lined inhumation pits in “barbarized cemeteries” in early medieval grave in a plain inhumation pit or in a pit Istria, which are dated to the 7th and 8th century. He has lined with brick or stones bonded with mortar (such as also pointed to the existence of stone cists in the 9th- and typical for the late antique burials). 10th-century cemeteries of Buzet and Rižana. He believed Moreover, according to Dušan Jelovina,32 the late that that grave architecture originated in the “Bronze Age antique graves in Danilo and Bijaći have been found and the hill-fort cultures.” However, if rectangular stone underneath the early medieval ones, much like in cists were the predominant type of grave architecture Mihaljevići. In Bijaći-St Martha, the late antique graves among Croats in Istria,26 and illustrated in such cem- are over 1 m underneath the early medieval graves (which eteries as Žminj and Buje, then that cannot be a legacy have, therefore, not disturbed them). Despite claims to of the “Bronze Age culture,” because in the latter, grave the contrary,33 the architecture of the late antique graves pits are fashioned out of “stones.” It is important to note is different from that of the early medieval graves. that rectangular stone cists co-existed with timber cof- A considerable chronological gap has also been initially fins, the latter being completely absent from any earlier advanced for the late antique and early medieval burial cemeteries. In his book on the early medieval cemeter- phases in Lučane near Sinj,34 even though the excavator of ies between the Zrmanja and the Cetina rivers,27 Dušan that site has meanwhile changed his opinion on matters of continuity.35 According to Jelovina, despite assumed continuity between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, no graves of the pagan (or first) horizon have been 23 Vinski 1971. 24 Vinski 1971, 60–61. 25 Marušić 1987a, 100. 28 Jelovina 1976, 76–77, 80, 148, 151. 26 Marušić 1987a, 98. 29 Jelovina 1976, 76; only published in 1992a. 27 It has become fashionable with many authors to limit their 30 Vrsalović 1968a; Jelovina 1992a. research to the area between those two rivers, although no 31 Vrsalović 1968a, tab. I, lower picture. archaeological, historical, or geographical justification exists for 32 Jelovina 1976, 32 and 43. such an approach. This choice may have more to do with the 33 Jelovina 1976, 33, t. X, pic. 1–4. location of the authors’ hometowns than with the “Kingdom of 34 Milošević 1984, 288. Croatia.” 35 Milošević 2001, 44.