A cemetery of Gradina near Dragišić

Abstract

Gradina near Dragisic, situated in the southern Libumia not far from the hill- fort settlement at Velika Mrdakovica, was investigated in two campaigns - in 1973 and 1976 - which resulted not only with the architectural remains at the very settlement at the elevated terrain but also with 18 tombs of various burial customs. Fourteen tombs of oval architecture are the earliest ones: one raw of stones is built at the very surface while the tomb itself was often cut into the bedrock within so enclosed area. Bodies of the deceased persons were buried in extended position. It seems, according to the osteological analysis, that tombs were reutilised more than once. According to certosoid fibula finds - as well as to other finds - this type of tombs can be dated from the end of the 6lh to the 3rd centuries BC. Three tombs of the other tomb-type were investigated; these were built of worked stones containing an abundance of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC Hellenistic relief ware. These vessels corresponding to the wine-ware of the Antiquity, together with fragments of wine amphorae found at numerous hill-forts and underwater sites along the eastern Adriatic coast, replenish a comprehension of Liburnian wine imports and of the use of wine- ware during the last two cenntrics of the pre-Christian era. The last burial at the cemetery of Gradina near Dragisic is a Roman incineration grave that corresponds well to finds from the neighbouring hill-fort Velika Mrdakovica where such incineration burials dominate constituting the majority of graves of the last decade of the pre-Christian era till the 3rd century AD. It is interesting to point out that during the second half of the first millennium BC Libumi of the southern Libumia practiced different burial customs than those of the northern, Nin area (Nin, Zaton, Ljubac and others); while at the Nin area dominates the older custom of burying the deceased persons in the crouched position (Germ. I locker-position) within the grave made of just four vertical stone slabs and one at the lop. in the southern Libumia iL was more common to bury the deceased persons in extended positions and that practice lasted up to the appearance of the new incineration burial custom at die end of Lhe pre-Christian era and the beginning of the Christian era.