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From the Middle Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages – Rampart at the Hillfort in Lobor, Our Lady of the Mountain (Majka Božja Gorska)

During the archaeological excavations at the hillfort in Lobor, Majka Božja Gorska (Krapina- Zagorje County), the vestiges of a settlement have been found. The settlement's oldest layers are marked by the Litzen pottery. The layers discovered at various positions belong to the late Tumulus culture, the earlier and late Urnfield culture, the later phase of the Early Iron Age and the Late Iron Age, and the early Roman Age. Archaeological layers, structures and objects had increased in number throughout the Antiquity until the end of the 6th century. The position was resettled in the 8th century and it has been used until the present day. Already in the Late Bronze Age, the hillfort, which was protected by the very nature of its position with almost vertical cliffs on two sides, was fortified with a rampart made of well-packed clay, built on northern and northwestern less defendable sides. Following the first Bronze Age phase in which the oldest earthen rampart was defined, there was a major renovation in the early Iron Age and the rampart was raised. At that time, the whole hillfort was divided in two parts, the upper position was separated, shaped like a castle and set apart from the suburb. Within the structure of the earthen rampart made of refined and well-packed clay, layers of baked earth and kind of cases with baked earth trimmed with rubble stone have been registered. Above the earthen part, a wooden fence was erected, of which only the pillar pits have remained. In the late Antiquity, a stone wall made of rubble stone was built on top of the Late Iron Age earthen rampart that had been abandoned at that point. During the Migration Period, at the time when the Slavs captured the fortification in the late 6th century, the whole hillfort, including the wall, was destroyed in a great fire. In the 8th or 9th centuries a palisade was erected on top and on the outside of the late Antique built structure that had been heavily damaged in the previous fire. Of the palisade, too, only large pillar pits have remained. In the 8th and 9th centuries, Lobor became one of the important ecclesiastical and probably political centers of 20 4th International Conference of Mediaeval Archaeology the Duchy of Lower Pannonia. In the late 11th or the early 12th centuries at the latest, the wall was no longer in use, but it protected, with its mass, the church and houses from strong northern and northeastern winds. During the WWII, the hillfort was again turned into a military stronghold and military tranches were dug precisely on top of the wall, which considerably damaged the earlier structures.

Lobor, Our Lady of the Mountain, Middle Bronze Age, Early Middle Ages, Hillfort in Lobor,

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