The castellum in Mogorjelo: A Contribution to a Long-Lasting Debate

Abstract

The late antique complex in Mogorjelo can be categorized as one of the prime Dalmatian late antique monuments. It has attracted considerable attention over the past hundred years and more, and its ground plan can be found in a number of reviews of late antique architecture in Dalmatia, as well as in the wider region. Still, although it has been studied for such a long time, there are many unanswered questions regarding this “puzzling” building complex. When a monument has such a long history of research, it is bound to become a subject of divergent and even conflicting opinions. The aim of this paper is to present the complex as objectively as possible, thus rectifying the conceptions about its form, function, and purpose in a wider organizational framework established in the province by Emperor Diocletian. The intention is not to explain each detail of the complex, but to offer a new and more comprehensive insight into the nature of the castellum itself, and to provide the scholars of late antique architecture with factography, as complete as possible, about the complex and its surroundings.