An Attempt to Reconstruct the Size of the Lajh Late Antiquity Cemetery in Kranj

Varstvo spomenikov, 44 Judita Lux, Jurij Ravnik* An Attempt to Reconstruct the Size of the Lajh Late Antiquity Cemetery in Kranj Key words: archaeology, Late Antiquity, Kranj – Lajh, cemetery, research history, map of the cemetery Introduction Due to the planned construction of three blocks of flats in the Sotočje area of Kranj (at the site of the buildings of the Sava tyre factory), in 2007 the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slove- nia, Kranj Regional Unit, carried out preservative archaeological research in the area of the well-known Lajh Late Antiquity cemetery in Kranj, led by Milan Sagadin and Judita Lux. The cemetery is entered in the register of cultural heritage kept by the Ministry of Culture under number EŠD 5145. Since 1983 it has also been protected as a locally significant cultural monument under the Decree on the proclamation of the old town core of Kranj as a cultural and historical monument.1 The first findings from the Lajh cemetery were discovered at the end of the 19th century. By 1905 excavations were being performed by several researchers from various institutions. Numerous articles were published which are now fundamental to the understanding of the significance of the cemetery and which will be cited in greater detail below. 1980 was a turning point, as the collected materials excavated between 1898 and 1905 were publicised for the first time. At that time they also publicised the findings excavated by Tomaž Pavšlar, which were acquired in 1937 by the present-day National Museum of Slo- venia. After 1982, individual preservative archaeological excavations were once again started in the area of the Late Antiquity cemetery. One of the more significant digs was the excavation conducted in 2004, which will be discussed further below. In the summer of 2007 the Institute took over the implementa- tion of preservative archaeological research on the parcel, which was known to have been excavated in the past. However, it turned out that the past excavations had not completely destroyed the site. This was also the reason for carrying out more thorough corrections to the known reconstructions of the cemetery, in which all of the available sources were taken into consideration. Research history The first accidental findings at the Late Antiquity cemetery in Kranj were discovered (after 1800) during the construction of the cellar of the Vidmar house in the eastern part of parc. no 407 (today no 407/1, Figure 1). The artefacts, a brooch (fibula?) and earrings, were defined as lost already in 1899.2 In 1890 and 1891, landholder and mill owner Tomaž Pavšlar built a new mill on parc. no 395 (today no 396/5). There is no data that any graves were found at that time. However, human bones are supposed to have been found before that in the south-eastern part of parcel no 397 (today parc. no 398/7). At the same time, graves with bronze accessories were found while planting trees on parcel no 423/1 (today 423/5).3 A few years later, in 1896, sixteen graves were found when removing tree roots from Pavšlar’s land on parc. no 407 (today 407/1). A gold ring was apparently found.4 Judita Lux, Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, Kranj Regional Unit Jurij Ravnik, Kranj, Slovenia * Jurij Ravnik assisted in the writing of the section The problem of past reconstructions of the maps of the cemetery. 59 Varstvo spomenikov, 44 According to the writings of Simon Rutar, various human bones were found on 17 August 1898, during the construction of a new barn on parc. no 407 (today 407/1) in front of Vidmar’s former cellar towards the Sava River.5 However, a few years later Jozef Szombathy wrote that according to witnesses there were no more graves on the land where the barn lay (today parc. no 404) and in the western corner of the yard, on parc. no 406 (today 406 and 407/1).˛6 The findings discovered before 1898 were probably the inducement for T. Pavšlar’s decision in Novem- ber of that year to excavate the western part of parc. no 407 (today 406 and 407/1). Approximately thirty gravesites were discovered. The deepest grave held a woman buried with very fine accessories. The objects were so exceptional that an article was written about them in the same year in the journal Izvestja Muzejskega društva za Kranjsko (Report of the Museum Society of Carniola),7 and a brief notice was published in the weekly Slovenski list (Slovenian Gazette).8 A smaller number of graves were also supposed to have been excavated during the construction of the new Pavšlar house in 1899 in the northern part of parc. no 404 (today 403) and the western part of parc. no 397 (today 396/7 and the central 9 part of 398/7). Also in the same year, on 23 October, Pavšlar began to dig on the western side of the new house and south of the regional road, on parc. no 406 (today 407/1), where he intended to plant an orchard. The work was completed in the year 1900 and the surface of the land had been lowered by one metre. Some 150 gravesites are supposed to have been discovered,10 but according to contemporary accounts this figure fluctuated from as low as 100 to as high as 500.11 Another opulent gravesite was unearthed at Lajh between 1897 and 1900. The artefacts were sold to the Imperial Natural History Museum in Vienna in 1903 by their owner, Pavšlar’s chief miller Ignac Wergles.12 The exceptional finds found at the cemetery in Kranj aroused the interest of well-known self-taught ar- chaeologist Jernej Pečnik. On the twenty-sixth of June 1900, with the approval of the town council, two test trenches were dug, at a length of five metres and a width of one metre. Three gravesites were found, two without accessories, and the third containing the remains of a soldier. He had been buried with an iron sword, with two iron knives and 23 arrow points by his head.13 Owing to the positive results, in 1901 an excavation was begun by Joseph Szombathy, curator of the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, with J. Pečnik as the field director. The costs of the research were borne by the Anthropology Society in Vienna. From 12 June to the end of July, 61 gravesites were excavated on a surface area of around 415 m² (on parc. no 409/1; today 409/1, 409/2, 409/4 and 410/1). In order to determine whether the cemetery extended north of the road, Szombathy and Pečnik also dug two test trenches in the south part of parc. no 423/1 (today 423/5 and 992) measuring 20 and 10 m². In the larger trench they found three and in the smaller two gravesites with skeletal remains. As Szombathy writes, together with Pečnik they discovered a total of 66 graves.14 The preliminary results from the excavations were published in 1902. All of the documentation, together with the findings and skeletal remains, are today kept at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. At that time, Szombathy drew a map of the cemetery at a scale of 1 : 200, which was published only in 2006.15 All of the gravesites were oriented and numbered, and the ground plan is set into a cadastral map with numbered parcels. During the first excavations the events were followed by the public media, and Szombathy and Pečnik’s digs, as well as further work at the cemetery, were described in the journals Gorenjec (The Upper Carniolan), Slovenec (The Slovenian), Slovenski list (Slovenian Gazette) and Slovenski narod (Slovenian Nation).16 From 15 July to 25 October 1901, Dr. Jakob Žmavc, a teacher at a gymnasium, began excavations on Pavšlar’s land (north of the new barn on parc. no 406, today 407/1). Ten gravesites were excavated, and precisely documented by Žmavc, but the results of the excavations were never published. The gravesites were drawn at a scale of 1 : 300 and numbered, but they were not oriented. They were described ac- curately, including measurements of the graves and the positions of the accessories, and sketches were made of some of the artefacts (Figure 2). The artefacts and selected parts of the skeletons were kept by T. Pavšlar.17 By the time of Pavšlar’s excavation of Late Antiquity gravesites, the level of the land (today parc. no 406 and 407/1) which bordered the road had dropped by nearly a metre, and it became urgently necessary to shore up the regional road. The archaeological excavations were taken over by the former Provincial Museum in Ljubljana under the leadership of preparator Ferdinand Schulz.18 In October of 1901, 58 gravesites were excavated (today parc. no 992 and 407/2). The preserved documentation includes a brief 60 Varstvo spomenikov, 44 description of the gravesites and a map of the gravesites, which are numbered but not oriented.19 The plan together with the accessories from the gravesites was first published only in 1980 in a monograph about the Lajh cemetery.20 A short list of the findings was issued as early as 1901,21 and selected artefacts were first published in 1903 in a text by Alois Riegl about the findings in Kranj.22 In 1903, Pavšlar decided to extend the search for gravesites to parc. no 398/2 (today 398/4, 398/5, 398/6, 398/7, 992 and 994). This was a garden to the north of the section excavated by F.

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