Dragana Vulović | Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade, Serbia (original) (raw)

Papers by Dragana Vulović

Гласник Српског археолошког друштва / Glasnik Srpskog arheološkog društva, 2021

Гласник Српског археолошког друштва / Journal of Serbian Archaeological Society, 30, Београд/Belgrade 2014, 83–108.

In 2012 during protective-systematic archeological investigations were discovered 75 grave units ... more In 2012 during protective-systematic archeological investigations were discovered 75 grave units in the “Benetton Serbia” factory complex in Jagodin Mala, Niš, Serbia. Burials belonged to the part of the eastern city’s necropolis of Naissus that lasted for three centuries from IV to the end of VI / beginning of VII century. Various grave forms were recorded during excavations (simple pits, graves of bricks and tegulae, masonry tomb constructions for individual or group funerals). The largest number of burial structures had been devastated before the moment of discovery. However, among the graves that were left unlooted, a grave of the deceased buried in a simple pit (grave 66) in the southern part of the investigated area stands out for the richness of the grave inventory.
A female aged 20–24 was buried in a shallow burial pit. She was interred in a barrel-vaulted tomb. In contrast to the modest grave form, its inventory deserves full attention because of its richness. The inventory consists of the deceased’s personal jewelry, made of precious metals and glass as well as glass balsamarium placed to the right of the head. The set of jewelry consisted of silver pin, a pair of gold earrings, a glass bead necklace, two silver bracelets – one on each hand, gold and silver finger-rings on the fingers of the left hand. The sliver pin with a polyhedral head was used for fastening the fabric which covered women’s heads at the necropolis of Jagodin Mala, as was noted in the two other cases at the nearby grave units.
A pair of gold earrings belongs to the type with open tapered ends and a smaller hoop with a pendant, ending in a double coil. There were three golden circular hoops with six granules on the pendant, among which there was a glass bead of hexagonal section. This type of earrings was quite common among the grave inventory in Jagodin Mala, and the late Roman Pannonia (Sirmium) or Dardania (Vindenae, Ulpiana). They were manufactured locally and were par-ticularly popular in IV century. A necklace made of 18 gold bowl-shaped beads and 100 green glass beads of hexagonal section, identical to those on the glass earring's pendant, with a gold tin fastening mechanism is a product of the local, provincial manufacture that was popular and produced for a bigger market at the end of III and during IV century.
Massive silver bracelets with open and slightly tapered ends belong to lo¬cal specimens of luxurious jewelry, which, judging by numerous analogies, were usually made of bronze and far more rarely of silver. An undecorated closed-ended silver finger-ring made of thin foil is chronologically insensitive. On the other hand, a golden finger-ring with a circular hoop and a large pair of granules opposite each other, a circular bezel with a motif of astragalus and a box-setting for a semispherical inlay for a cyan-blue glass is a ring of standard form, popular during IV century.
Such rich collection of personal jewelry made of precious metals could indicate a certain status – affiliation to higher circles of society that the deceased could have had in life, but it may reflect the desire of relatives or persons that bur¬ied her to display the desired status, rather than the real one, by using luxurious items. Based on analogies of jewelry from the already dated units from Jagodin Mala and other sites, the most exact time of this young woman’s burial would be around the middle and the second half of the fourth century, when the Naissus experienced its economic growth, visible in many spheres of social life and when, the state, municipal and private manufacture thrived.

Зборник Народног музеја (Ниш) / Papers of the National Museum of Niš 23, 2014, 35–64., 2014

During the archaeological researches in 2012, in the area of “Benetton” Factory, which represents... more During the archaeological researches in 2012, in the area of “Benetton” Factory, which represents the eastern and southeastern part of a large late-antiquity necropolis in Niš-Naissus (Jagodin Mala city quarter), 75 tombs have been recorded. Amongst the graves, particular attention of the researchers was drawn by a grave with a field label G-6. Up to the socle level it was dug into the subsoil layer. It was built in a shape of sarcophagus, of bricks (41 x 28 x 4 cm and 40 x 27 x 3,5 cm) and mortar while on the outer side it had pebble plating. The grave measures are 2,74 x 1,30 m (external), 1,90 x 0, 60 m (internal) and is 0,71 m high. The grave covering was made of the large format bricks, probably 56 x 56 x 6 cm, arranged in a shape of a double-pitch roof, with vertically placed brick on the eastern gable, additionally fixed by a large stone, connected with mortar to the socle. In the western part the grave was damaged; however, on the basis of the neighboring graves shape, we assume that it was built of brick, stone and mortar in the form of an arched pediment.
The brick built grave number 6 was originally designed for burial of one individual person. However, due to certain historical, familial, economic or other circumstances, there was later buried more than one person in the grave, so that the grave, in terminological and functional terms, actually represents a family/collective tomb.
The smallest number of individual persons buried in that grave, according to results of anthropological analysis, was five:
- two males (individual no.1, 45-55 years old and individual no. 2, 25-30 years old),
- two females (individual no. 3, a girl 6-7 years old and individual no. 4, about 20 years old)
- one person of unknown gender (individual no. 5, 20-24 years old).
For now, the only reliable data is that remains of individual no.1 represent the oldest funeral. With caution, we could assume that having laid the individual no. 1 (a male 45-55 years old), along the southern and northern edge of the grave two individuals were laid (no. 2, a male, 25-30 years old and no. 3, a girl, 6-7 years old), and then individual no. 4 (a female, about 20 years old), over the primary buried person, because of which bones of the man (no. 2) and the girl (no. 3) were probably slightly moved aside. It is unknown relative relation of the individual’s no. 5 funeral, a person of unknown gender, 20-24 years old, of whom only a few bones of the right leg and two teeth have been recorded. Such level of preservation of the bones could have been influenced by a number of factors: soil acidity, fragility and very nature of the bone material as well as high rate of burials in one place.
Movable finds from the tomb are relatively modest. There were found remains of a gold embroidery fabric, three silver needles, frame of the lead mirror, four bronze rings and several glass vessels, in a very fragmented state. Next to the main individual no. 2, on the left, a fragment of a bottom of a glass vessel was found (cat. 9) and fragments of a glass balsamarium (cat. 10). The biggest number of objects is associated with the girl, buried with two or three silver pins (cat. 2-4), four bronze rings (cat. 5-8), the lead mirror from which the preserved frame remained (cat. 1) and a glass vessel (cat. 11).
Frame of the lead mirror, made of one-piece mold, could have been manufactured in some local workshop (officina plumbaria). Placing mirror in the tomb in the funeral practice, through reflection of the glass, could have represented a link between the worlds of the living and the dead, as well as desire to preserve symbolically the figure of the deceased through that reflection. Finds of silver pins represent indirect confirmation that the youngest deceased female head a veil over her head, or that she was wrapped in a shroud. She was buried with personal jewelry consisting of four bronze rings of the same type (circular link and rounded head with a relief representation), which represent typical products of the local fourth century workshops, available to wider range of social classes.
According to finding of the bronze coins from 355-361 that probably belonged to some of the younger funerals, we comes to data that funerals had been conducted in that grave before and around IV century, in the time of greatest prosperity of Naissus, encountered in the time of Constantine I and his successors.

Book chapters by Dragana Vulović

LIMES XXIIII Proceedings of the 24th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 2nd − 9th September 2018 Viminacium − Belgrade, Serbia, 2023

2021, Arheologija u Srbiji. Projekti Arheološkog instituta u 2020. godini. eds. S. Vitezović, M. Radišić, Đ. Obradović, 2023

Bioarchaeology in the Balkans. Studies in anthropology and zooarchaeology / Bioarheologija na Balkanu. Studije iz antropologije i zooarheologije, 2023

Bioarchaeology in the Balkans. Studies in anthropology and zooarchaeology/ Bioarheologija na Balkanu. Studije iz antropologije i zooarheologije, 2023

Bioarchaeology in the Balkans. Studies in anthropology and zooarchaeology / Bioarheologija na Balkanu. Studije iz antropologije i zooarheologije, 2023

Gamzigrad-Studien I, Ergebnisse der deutsch-serbischen Forschungen im Umfeld des Palastes Romuliana; eds. Gerda von Bülow / Sofija Petković, 2020

Arheologija u Srbiji. Projekti Arheološkog instituta u 2019. godini. eds. S. Vitezović, M. Radišić, Đ. Obradović, 2021