Saturday, October 27, 2007

Bukovac complete

July 26th

At the site Bukovac-Ilirsko Groblje (translates as Illyrian Graveyard) in the village Bukovac near Mionica (Serbia), rescue excavations of Bronze Age necropolis-under-tumuli are continuing. During the previous campaigns (2004-6), five tumuli made of deposited soil were excavated.

The excavations this year exposed the central, sixth tumulus that stands out architecturally. At least six grave contexts were found in it till now. The mound is rendered special because of its stone construction-base, over which ceramic urns with cremated body remains were laid. In the next few days follows the excavation of the central space of the mound, under which a focal grave context is expected.

More than 110 years ago - in the area around Mionica - the pioneer of Serbian archaeology professor Mihailo Valtrovic, started the first planned research of prehistoric period in the then Kingdom of Serbia. All the archaeological material and the whole archive from his early work disappeared during the First World War. Most necropolises that Valtrovic excavated and registered have been destroyed through farming and agricultural activity, and the Bukovac – Ilirsko Groblje necropolis is one of the rare remaining ones.

Current excavations are a joint project of the Republic Institute for protection of cultural monuments (Belgrade), National Museum (Valjevo), and Brooklyn College CUNY New York, with full support by Mionica municipality. Research is run by Vojislav Filipovic (Archaeological Institute Belgrade) and Slobodan Mitrovic (Graduate Center and Brooklyn College CUNY)

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August 1st

As it turns out - the previously mentioned “central space” of the Bukovac central tumulus was actually Valtrovic’s pit (late XIX century: he had dug a trench through the center of the tumulus, probably found something and then expanded to dig out that huge pit, photo above).

So we did not find anything in the middle, but after lifting the stone “cloak”, the last urn was found - with burnt bones of a five month old fetus, and a lump of red ochre next to it - that Valtrovic missed by few inches.

The team: Milica Popovic, Milan Veselinovic, Marko Jankovic, Milijana Stamenkovic, Aleksa Janovic, Aksel Ben Sasi, Jugoslav Pendic, Natalija Gakovic, David Bakic, Vladimir Sljivic, Dragan Sljivic, Stefan Trajkovic Filipovic, Srdjan Radovanovic, Vojislav Filipovic, Slobodan Mitrovic.

1 comment:

nebojle said...

well done you can see on the first look that the serbians are behind this work! just keep up show everybody who you are