Thursday 4 March 2021

Monastirište




Are local legends true? And is Monastirište, a plateau in Crna Trava area of Eastern Serbia, which has always been treated by the local villagers as a sacred place, rally the location of an Early Christian monastery?

Well yes 🙂 The geophysical data showed the church walls at the depth of 2,8 meters and many other walled structures located even deeper... 

Short documentary in Serbian:

I just love the fact that archaeologists get "surprised" every time they find an ancient fortress at the place local villagers call "gradina" or "gradište" or "grad" (all meaning city, fort, place where city, fort once stood)...

Or when they find an ancient church or monastery at the place which local villagers call "crkvina", "crkvište" (both mean church, place where church once stood) or "manastir", "manastirište" (both mean monastery, place where monastery once stood)...

3 comments:

  1. Scientists are always astonished, amazed & shocked that gravity is real and the earth is actually round! :)

    Is the slavic word "grad" used for a fortified village/town/ancient traveller's inn? In Manchu, it is "hotan", in Malay it is "kota", in Japanese Ainu it is "kotan", all similar despite long distances between and different cultures and languages. In the Tarim basin along the silk road, a town for travellers was "Khotan". I see no obvious connection to "grad", but I'm curious.

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  2. After all these years can you tell us what is your specialization: archeology or ethnology?

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