MEDIEVAL NECROPOLIS OF CRKVINA

This site (Nekropola Crkvina/Некропола Црквина) is hidden in a forest at 948 m above sea level near Montenegro. It is one of the country's 22 medieval necropolises listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2016 along with six others in Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro. Particularly valuable, it houses 211 burials, including three decorated ancient tombs, a Roman altar, two early medieval tombs, and 207 stećci, tombs from the 12th-15th centuries typical of the region associated with the Christian Bogomil movement and/or the Bosnian Church. Of these stećci, 19 have ornamentation: human figures, animals, swords, knives, rosettes, crescent moons, etc. To reveal these motifs, remove the moss that covers them by rubbing with a wooden stick. The name of the site, Crkvina ("little church"), could be related to the presence of an ancient Christian place of worship. But no such ruins have yet been found here. The necropolis is also known as Mramor ("marble") and was used as a burial place until the 1930s. The discovery of rock paintings, funerary objects and several burial mounds in the area indicates a continuous human presence since the Neolithic period. Throughout antiquity, the Ćehotina Valley, from Pljevlja (northwestern Montenegro) to Foča, was a territory of the Pyrustes tribe, an Illyrian people allied with the Romans and renowned for their miners.