engleski

NEW DATA ON THE STONE FURNITURE OF THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN BILICE IN THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF DALMATIA

The article contains a survey of data concerning early Christian church furniture from Bilice near Šibenik, one very important locality in the Roman province of Dalmatia. The site was excavated at the beginning of the 20th century, when a very interesting group of church furniture was found. The furniture, made of limestone, can be dated to the 6th century. Unfortunately, a greater number of the stone monuments have not been preserved. An exception make fragments of the plutei, which appear in the frame of two reconstructed plutei, very famous due to the unusual monograms at their upper parts. In 2016 revision archaeological excavations of the early Christian site in Bilice, have started. The excavations have been led by Archaeological Department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb. During the field-work three new fragments of church furniture have been found. There are parts of plutei and perhaps of one pilaster. One of the newly found fragments has been petrographic analysed. The results, exposed in the article, are very interesting, especially in the context of known provenance of church furniture from other early Christian localities in Dalmatia. In order to determine petrographic properties and to make a conclusion about potential quarry that was source of the stone for the church furniture construction, petrographic observation was done at the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, University of Zagreb. According to the analysis, the stone sample is light grey fine-grained biomicrite limestone consisting of numerous macroscopically visible, densely packed alochems. In the thin section numerous bioclasts – fragments of echinoids, bryozoans, shells and foraminifera were observed. Bioclasts are relatively well sorted, medium densely packed with range from 0.1 to 1.5mm and bounded together with partially dolomitized micritic matrix. Additionally, the sample was petrographically compared with the Seget stone variety that is excavated in the quarry near town of Trogir, Croatia. The stone sample is comparable and shows similarities with the Seget stone variety permitting to assume that the stone used for the church furniture was excavated in the Seget quarry.

Bilice, church furniture, Seget quarry

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