Preliminary report about the results of the excavations on the site ’’Crkvina” in Galovac village near Zadar

Abstract

The author gives a preliminary report about the results of the excavations conducted in 1979, and 1988. on the site Crkvinu in the village Galovac, ten kilometers east from Zadar. The remains of a old Christian basilica with nartex and a lateral room on the south side of the basilica have been discovered up to now. In front of the basilia there are foundation remains of a smaller church-like construction (from the 17th or 18th century) which has presbiterian part interpolated into the nartex of the old Christian basilica. Some meters west from this church there is a late classical vaulted crypt. Together with tile architectural remains there is a number of stone plastic parts from church furniture from the late Christian and pre-Romanesque period. Seventy-two graves with stone tomb architecture have been investigated. Two of them tire stone sarcophagi made of Roman spolias. Discovered graves are dated with the help of the money from the 12th to the Kith century and are part of a bigger necropolis which exists on this locality. This report includes a choice of technical and photo documentation of the site and archeological material with a preliminary scientific appraisal of the archeological and historical value of this locality The conclusion is that the locality Crkvina in Galovac belongs to the most important complex localities discovered so far in Dalmatia and it has a continutiy from the 6th to the 17th century. It would be of great archeological interest to continue with the investigation of Crkvina in Galovac and to complete it too, since there is no doubt that we shall come into possession of a whole series of scientific data relevant for the culture (material ami spiritual) of the autochthonous old Croatian inhabitants in this areheologically rich hut still not nearly investigated enough area in the northen part of Dalmatia,