Church of St. Mark- Archaeological research

Urednik — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 06:22:02 +0000

From 11 to 22 September 2023, archaeological research was carried out of the remains of the Church of St Mark in Široka Luka, near Plitvica Selo. The Department for Archaeology within the Croatian Conservation Institute resumed the research conducted by the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb (AMZ) between 2011 and 2013. For this reason, the archaeologists from the Croatian Conservation Institute (doc. dr. sc. Ana Azinović Bebek, Petar Sekulić, David Fudurić) joined forces with two representatives from AMZ (Maja Bunčić, Anita Dugonjić) and three archaeology students (Iva Tomljenović, Patricia Potočić and Ivo Ćevid) from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb. The remains of the church probably belong to the Church of St George, the written mention of which dates back to the 13th century. It was not until the 20th century that the church began to mistakenly be called the Church of St Mark as the Orthodox population that settled here following the Treaty of Sistova and the return of Plitvice Lakes to the territory of the Habsburg Empire, still referred to it as the Church of St George (“Đurađ”) in the 18th century. Also, records dating back to the early 20th century mention that the residents of the nearby village of Drežnik Grad would go on pilgrimage to the ruins of the church on St George’s Day. In the 20th century, the church was taken apart to construct a small wall along the Plitvica brook.

On the raised terrace above the floodplain of the Plitvica brook a small Romanesque church was built, featuring a round apse and a stone sanctuary. In the 15th century, a large Gothic church was added by knocking down the south wall of the small church and connecting it to the new church. The small church was therefore turned into the northern chapel of the large church. A total of 13 graves have so far been explored within the church, dating back to the period between the 13th and 15th centuries based on the belt buckles and coins found. The graves were submitted for anthropological analysis to dr. sc. Vlasta Vyroubal at the Anthropological Centre of the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts, who also took part in the research.

Objava Church of St. Mark- Archaeological research pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

170 YEARS OF RESEARCHING THE AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM OF THE PLITVICE LAKES NATIONAL PARK

Urednik — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 06:19:46 +0000

“National parks should first and foremost serve the general cultural and especially scientific enrichment of the people. They are indeed cultural and above all scientific institutions – natural museums and laboratories,” writes in the preface to the edition “Plitvice Lakes National Park” from 1958 its editor Josip Šafar.

The natural laboratory of the Plitvice Lakes attracted scientists for a whole century before these words were written and before the Plitvice Lakes were declared a national park, so today we mark almost 170 years of research into the aquatic ecosystem of Plitvice Lakes. From the first measurements of depths in 1850, to Ivo Pevalek’s research in the 1920s and 1930s and multidisciplinary research in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, to the present day, scientists have never not lost interest in studying the Plitvice Lakes. It is certain that this specific area and its outstanding value will never cease to be an object of curiosity for scientists and researchers, a real natural museum and laboratory, so there is no doubt that we can look forward to celebrating plenty more jubilees of scientific and research work in the future.

In order to remember the most important years and events in the long history of research into the aquatic ecosystem of Plitvice Lakes, we summarised them in the form of a poster.

Poster:170 years of researching the aquatic ecosystem of the Plitvice Lakes National Park

Objava 170 YEARS OF RESEARCHING THE AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM OF THE PLITVICE LAKES NATIONAL PARK pojavila se prvi puta na Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera".

Arhiva history - Nacionalni park "Plitvička jezera"

Church of St. Mark- Archaeological research

170 YEARS OF RESEARCHING THE AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM OF THE PLITVICE LAKES NATIONAL PARK