Late Antique and Byzantine Archaeology

The antique Niš (Naissus) in today’s Republic of Serbia, was developed in the fertile valley of the Nišava river (Navisos), near it’s confluence into Južna Morava river (Margum).  It belonged to the group of the largest cities in the region of Dardania ([Nai]ssus Darda[niae]), in the province of Moesia superior, and, after administrative reforms in the tetrarchy period, it became part of a newly founded province of Dacia mediterranea. Being an important strategic point, the city was developed on the crossroad of important trans-Balkan routes.
The city went through economic, political and demographic flourishment since the end of the III century, and especially throughout the IV century, up to middle of the V century, when the city was severely destroyed by Huns in 441 AD, and never fully recovered. Naissus especially reached the peak of its urbanistic and artistical flourishement during the reign of Constantine I (306-337), born in Naissus, who magnifice ornavit his birth place. Another testimony on the city’s importance are numerous visits, longer or shorter staying of the most important rulers of the IV century.
The earliest mention of the Christian communities in Naissus originates from the IV century. From this period the first Christian monuments begin to appear on the city territory. Basilicae, graveyard churches, family grave tombs are being erected, and among small objects appear those with clear Christian symbolism. From the IV century, Naissus is confirmed as an episcopal place, and in the period IV-VI century names of six episcopes, participants of Ecumenical councils, were noted.

The concept of »transformation« or simply »reshaping« contains the elements of what remains, the conservative, the kernel of what continues, as well as the elements of what changes, the innovative. In the framework of this publication of articles from a conference in 2016 on »Transformations of City and Countryside in the Byzantine Period«, we draw attention to this dichotomy and investigate the social dynamics behind changes in urban and rural life in the Byzantine period that can be detected by archaeology, history and art history.
The Byzantine Empire is an ideal subject for studying how social transformation proceeds, what triggers transformation, what factors underlie it and what the processes involved are. Who were the agents of transformation and how did they and their environment change? How flexible were the state or its citizens in handling external and internal pressures of innovation? In what manner and to what extent were the Byzantines able to preserve their identity and the internal cohesion of their empire in the course of these processes of adaptation?

Edited by Dominic Moreau (University of Lille), Carolyn S. Snively (Gettysburg College), Alessandra Guiglia (Sapienza Univeristy of Rome), Isabella Baldini (University of Bologna), Ljubomir Milanović (Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Ivana Popović (Archaeological Institute of Belgrade), Nicolas Beaudry (Université du Québec à Rimouski) and Orsolya Heinrich-Tamáska (Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europa–GWZO) .

Published in memory of Prof. Claudia Barsanti, Archaeology of a World of Changes provides a selection of papers presented in sessions on Late Roman and Early Byzantine archaeology, architecture, sculpture and landscapes of the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, “Byzantium - A World of Changes” (Belgrade, 22-27 August 2016). The variety of topics in archaeology and art history that are discussed in this volume illustrates the richness of material culture in the Roman East and the Eastern Mediterranean during the transition to the Middle Ages, especially in Greece and the Balkans. Christian buildings, not only churches but also episcopal palaces, along with their architecture and decoration, receive special attention. Indeed, the volume includes the complete proceedings of a round table on the historical development, the architectural typologies and the domestic spaces of bishops’ residences which took place at the Congress.

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.