Djordje Jankovic

The Serbs in the Balkans in

the light of Archaeological
Findings









A medley of historical circumstances was the reason that the Serbs started living
together only after the formation of Yugoslavia in 1918. But even then, the union of
the Serbs was not complete. History and archaeology did not realize the Serbian
ethnic area as a whole, except for a few exceptions. This was due to a small number of
experts and to the Yugoslav orientation, and that is why hardly any research work was
done in connection with the early Serbian past.
In World War II Germany and Italy divided and separated the Serbs. The
consequences of the state breaking apart could not be eradicated even after the victory
of the Allies. The Serbian people, divided into new republics, could not take care of
their tradition and culture, as well as of their archaeological monuments. There were
various national archaeologies, but not the Serbian, in the former Yugoslavia.
Still, a portion of archaeological monuments visible on the earth's surface can be used
for research. The archaeological findings below the surface of the earth are gradually
coming to light. The available archaeological data in the Serbian ethnic area fully
confirm and explain the insufficient written historical records. The maps of the
archaeological monuments made in different periods of time show the continuity and
gradual spreading of the Serbian ethnic area from the early Middle Ages.
De administrando Imperio, written by Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus VII, is
the only written source in which the tradition of the settling of the Serbs is
preserved.
[1]
It originated in the mid 10th century. The history of the Serbs and their
territories were depicted in it. According to the story therein, the Serbs who lived in
Boyka were divided between the two successors to the throne. The prince of one
portion of the people and his people escaped and found shelter with Heraclius, the
emperor of Byzantium (610-641). He gave them a town in the Salonica region which
was later called Servia, after the Serbs. Then, they started moving towards the Danube
river, but they changed their minds and through the Belgrade commander gained a
permission from the emperor to settle in Dalmatia.
The archaeological science has established a link, which dates back to the 7th century,
between the Danube river near Brza Palanka and the region of Pljevlja.
[2]
This may
mean that the Serbs from today's Northeast Serbia moved to the Dalmatian province
of the time. This also proves that the fact about the Serbs moving from the vicinity of
Salonica towards the Danube river could be true. However, there are no other data on
the Serbs in the vicinity of Salonica. So, the data on the Serbs, Salonica, and Servia
could be interpreted differently. Namely, the name of Salonica is similar to the name
of the classical town of Solin near Split (Salona). Servia, which is around 135 km
away from Salonica, bears essentially the same name as the town of Srb near Knin,
located some 150 km from Solin. So, one could think that the story was about Srb and
Solin, that the Serbs came first to western Dalmatia, and not to Servia and Salonica.
These notions show that the problem of the accuracy of the data on the settling of the
Serbs could not be solved without archaeological findings.
The origin and meaning of the Serbian name have been sought for centuries, but no
interpretation has been generally accepted so far. The prevailing view is that the
Serbian name is of Iranian origin, even Indo-Iranian.
[3]
Accepting this or some other
assumption about the origin of the Serbian name is hindered by the lack of knowledge
of the oldest Serbian history, i.e. the knowledge of the exact time when the group of
Slavs were thus named; or, of the time when the bearers of the Serbian name became
Slavs. As a people who probably named themselves thus, the Serbs are among the
oldest Slav peoples. In the Story of the Past, the first Russian chronicle, the Serbs are
among the first five Slav peoples who were enumerated by their names.
[4]
In this
Chronicle, they are mentioned in the light of the events referring to the first
millennium before Christ. However, science does not take this source into account
because it cannot be checked from the archaeological point of view. The age of the
Serbian name is simply proven by its great diffusion in the early Middle Ages. There
are not many examples of the sort in Europe. At that time, the Serbs lived on the Laba
and in Roman Dalmatia, but they also lived in the above mentioned town of Servia in
the region of Salonica. They lived in Gordoserba near Nikea in Asia Minor, too; this
was the bishop's town mentioned many times since the beginning of the 7th
century.
[5]
Since there are records of the Serbs living on such a vast area, it is evident
that they had been numerous and powerful and borne their name before the resettling
of the Slavs in the 6th and 7th centuries. It is also unique that today the Serbs live both
in the Balkans and in Germany.
The state of Serbia was first mentioned by Emperor Constantine VII. The name Serbia
has been mentioned regularly since then. From the 12th century, in western (Latin)
written sources, the Serbian state in the river basins of the Drina and Morava was
called Raska (Rassa, Rassia).
[6]
The last time when the name Raska was used for the
Serbian region in the mesopotamia between the Sava and Drava rivers and in today's
Vojvodina was in the 15th and 16th centuries.
[7]
The Serbian western states and lands
were named mostly by the local names of Bosnia, Rama, Herzegovina, etc.
In the Byzantine written sources the Serbs are frequently mentioned by their classical
names, after the regions they lived in (Dalmatians, Tribali, Dacians, etc.). They were
most frequently called Dalmatians, after the Roman province of Dalmatia, the country
they lived in. This was the land extending from Kosovo and the towns of Lipljan and
Zvecan.
[8]
The Chronicle of the Frankish Kingdom(year 822) recorded that the Serbs
"...had control over a large part of Dalmatia." This fact is related to the region of the
Una river.
[9]
Latin sources of a later date state that the Serbs lived in Dalmatia or
Slavonia (Sclavonia), depending on whether the classical or the then term Dalmatia
was considered. Namely, the Roman province of Dalmatia extended from Istria to the
basin of the Morava river and from the sea to the valley of the Sava river. This is the
Dalmatia depicted in the Frankish and Byzantine chronicles. But, since the Byzantine
theme of Dalmatia of the time occupied only the narrow littoral belt, the Latin sources
sometimes called Serbia by the name of Slavonia, the land which extended between
Dalmatia (with the towns of Trogir, Split, Dubrovnik, and Bar) and Hungary.
[10]

In the last centuries, the Serbs in Dalmatia were called Vlachs, Morlachs (Morlaci),
Morovlachs.
[11]
The Italian sources call even the Serbs from Belgrade by the names of
Morlaci and Vlachs.
[12]
The Slavs called Romanic people and the Romanic people -
cattle breeders by the name of Vlachs; later, the name was used for all cattle breeders.
When the population of Croatia (Dalmatia) was seriously thinned by the Mongolian
invasion in 1242, a new area for settling was open. Later, the "Vlachs" were
mentioned in the area of the Cetina river, in Knin, and in Lika.
[13]

The name "Vlach" was derived for the Serbs because of their cattle breeder's way of
life. In the mountainous regions of Dalmatia, especially in the border areas, the Serbs
raised cattle by tradition. This helped them to survive more easily in the wars that they
had to fight constantly. From the earliest times, one of the characteristics that
distinguished the Serbs from their neighbours was cattle breeding. The nature of the
Serbian economy, which has in some modes persisted till the present day, is evident
both in archaeological and written sources.
Constantine Porphyrogenitus VII was the first who recorded the Serbian cattle
breeding trade. He wrote that the Serbs of Pagania lived on the islands of Mljet,
Korcula, Brac and Hvar, and that "...they owned their herds and lived off
them."
[14]
Jovan Kinam, in his description of the conquest of Galic near Kosovska
Mitrovica in 1149, wrote that the Byzantines imprisoned many barbarians "...who
were partly warriors and partly cattle breeders."
[15]
The western sources from the same
period also recorded the Serbian cattle breeding. In the second half of the 12th
century, Wilhelm of Tyr wrote that the Serbs lived in mountains and woods, that they
did not know much about agriculture, and that they had many herds of cattle, much
milk, cheese, butter, honey, and wax.
[16]

This, still preserved, cattle breeding way of life of the Serbs was best described by
Jovan Cvijic.
[17]
Their seasonal movements, singled out in his works, from the Dinaric
region to the mesopotamia between the Sava and Drava rivers, and partly to the
Littoral, gave an exact picture of the old Serbian ethnic area. The settlements were
located in the mountainous regions, and in winter the pastures were looked for in the
plains. The Serbs followed the same pattern in the Middle Ages as well, when they
settled the Dinaric mountains, with many plateaus, and the neighbouring sunny
valleys and plains suitable for winter homes. The arrangement of settlements and
graveyards, the appearance of homesteads, the crafts, and the character of the
population had to be in accordance with their way of life.
It is certain that other Slav groups also settled the today's Serbian territory in the early
Middle Ages. In the written sources of the time, these groups of Slavs were not
usually mentioned by names since they were not numerous. Various written sources
from the 9th and 10th centuries state that the Serbs in the Balkan peninsula were
surrounded by some tribes that also lived in the neighbourhood of the Serbs on the
Laba river. These tribes merged into one and the same Serbian people. The process of
amalgamation was completed in the 13th century although the assimilation of the new
Slav groups continued.
Thus, Constantine VII records that Prince Mihailo of Zahumlje descended from the
Litcik family. At the same time the Licikaviki lived between the lower Odra and Varta
river basins.
[18]
It seems that the today's town of Vukovar (in the past called Vlcou,
Wolkov, Volkow) got its name after the Vilci family (Wolves) that lived on the Laba
river in the Meklenburg region.
[19]
It is necessary to take into account the other Slavs
who were known to be living in the north - the Havolians on the Havela river, then the
Ljutici, Glinjani, Glomaci, Moracani, etc. It can be assumed that even the members of
the South Slav tribes reached Dalmatia.
***
It has been established that since the middle of the 5th century the Slavs kept settling
the territories under the Roman control. That was the time when the Roman defence
on the Danube was crushed by the Hun-German invasion. That was the time when the
oldest Slav settlement in the Balkans dated. It was situated near Musici, on the Drina
river.
[20]
The written and archaeological sources state that the South Slavs settled the
Balkan and western Pannonian regions during the second half of the 6th century and
at the beginning of the 7th.
[21]
At that early time one should distinguish the South
Slavs from the Serbs.
The culture of the South Slavs is well known thanks to the researches carried out in
Bulgaria, Romania, and in our country.
[22]
The settlements were located in river
valleys, on gentle slopes, close to the water. Half-buried wooden houses had stone or
earthen furnaces in one of the corners. In most cases only the quadrangular buried
construction and the furnace remained intact. They burnt their dead, as all other Slavs
did, and then buried them in the ground, with or without urns. Such settlements and
graveyards on the territory of the former Yugoslavia are known to exist in the Danube
and in the Sava Basins.
[23]

The Serbs lived in hilly-mountainous regions. Their settlements with houses above the
ground were situated on the slopes, close to wells and ponds. The fireplace was on the
floor of the house, close to the wall or in the corner. Not much could be saved of these
houses, so they are not easy to locate. The whereabouts of an early Serbian settlement
have been established in the Pester field.
[24]
The only explored settlement is situated in
Batkovici near the town of Bijeljina.
[25]
Shallow foundations of irregular shape - the
remains of these houses above the ground - were found here. This settlement was
populated throughout the Middle Ages, starting from the early 7th century.
The Serbs cremated their dead and displayed the remains above the ground. It was a
special way of burial in the air. Only under certain conditions the archaeological
findings of this custom could be called graves. This procedure with the dead is
depicted in the Story of the Past.
[26]
These "graves" were archaeologically explored in
the area of Luzicani.
[27]
Today, they are small mounds of about 3 m in diameter and
0.5 m by height. The construction of the burial mounds has not been sufficiently
explored. Shattered pieces of the dishes which were used in the funeral and memorial
feasts are sometimes found along the brim or inside the burial mound.
The Serbian graveyards from the 7th and 8th centuries were archaeologically explored
in Ljutici near the town of Pljevlja, and on Mount Jezerska between the towns of
Prizren and Strpce.
[28]
Since these burial mounds were easy to notice, they were also
found on many other sites - on Mount Pester and by the towns of Savnik, Drvar,
Grahovo, Srb, etc. A burial mound near the town of Konjic was partly
explored.
[29]
With the abundance of earthenware findings, it is similar to the burial
mounds on the Danube river found on Ostrovul Mare in Romania.
[30]
These
graveyards can hardly be preserved on cultivable land with no rocks. In the Pannonian
Plain, or on similar grounds, they could only be preserved and noticed by accident.
The graveyard on Ostrovul Mare is not destroyed as there were meadows there, not
cultivable land.
The graveyards with burial mounds are usually located near a water spring, which
shows that there were settlements in the vicinity. As a rule, even today, modern
settlements and sheepfolds are situated close to these graveyards although no traces of
the previous settlements have been discovered so far. But, they existed and this is
supported by indirect proofs of social life in the vicinity. Namely, in theStory of the
Past were depicted pagan "igrista" (playgrounds) between the villages.
[31]
There, the
pagan Slavs gathered, danced, and got married. In Emperor Dushan's Charter (1331-
1355) to Chilandarion, in which the boundaries near the monastery of St. Peter
Koriski were described, a toponym for one of the peaks of Mount Jezerska was
"Igriste".
[32]
This means that both the Serbian graveyard and a pagan centre of social
life were situated on Mount Jezerska, which certainly proves that people lived there in
the surrounding villages. Such toponyms still exist. For example, in central Bosnia,
east of the town of Kakanj, there is Igrisca peak (1303 m) and on Mount Javor, south
of Vlasenica - Igriste (1406 m).
So, the Serbian settlements as well as their graveyards were situated in the hilly-
mountainous region such as the Dinaric region. In these regions people mostly raised
cattle. The line that connects the locations of the explored burial mounds denotes the
area in which the Serbs lived in the 7th and 8th centuries: from the divide of the
Sitnica and Lepenac rivers in the south-east to the basin of the Una river in the west.
There are no data about the eastern boundaries so far.

Fig. 1.- Serbs in the 7th-8th centuries



The area beyond these boundaries offers archaeological traces of the South Slavs and
other peoples. The graveyards common in the South Slav culture, with the remains of
the dead cremated and buried in the ground, have been discovered in the Danube
basin (Celarevo, Slankamen)
[33]
and in the Sava basin (Laktasi, Bijeljina).
[34]
These
findings determine the former northern boundaries of the Serbs. Such graves in the
Littoral could possibly belong to the Croats (Kasic,
[35]
Bakar
[36]
). Within the
boundaries of the medieval Croatia, in the Littoral, archaeologists found numerous
skeleton graveyards which undoubtedly belonged to the Croats from the time when
they adopted Christianity in the 8th and 9th centuries.
[37]
These graveyards determine
the possible south-western boundaries of the Serbs.
Apart from the Slavs, the population that spoke the Romance languages also lived on
this territory. The archaeological findings until the 7th century inclusive give
information about the Romanic people or Byzantines living in the hinterland.
[38]
The
Romanic people, known in the written sources, stayed longer in the Littoral - in the
towns such as Durazzo, Dubrovnik or Zadar. The town of Svac, about 10 km far from
the Coast and Ulcinj, is very significant.
[39]
The crypts in which the dead were buried
in the Christian tradition were discovered in this town. Byzantine jewellery, dishes,
and other objects known in the Byzantine regions extending from Crimea, across
Sicily, to Istria were found lying by the skeletons. The objects of the Slav origin, such
as pots made on a slow wheel and decorated with a comb, were also found. Similar
graveyards were also discovered in Durazzo.
[40]

These Byzantine graveyards are particularly important for establishing the origin of
the Koman-Kruje culture. This culture appeared at the end of the 7th century and
disappeared in the 9th. Albanian scientists are trying to use this culture in order to
prove the continuity between the old Romanized population and the Albanians of
today.
[41]
However, these skeleton graveyards conceal the remains of special costumes
and presents. Unique buckles, shackles known with some nomads, axes as weapons,
and imported Byzantine jewellery were found. These findings differentiate this
population from the Romanic people of Svac and Durazzo, where there are no such
objects. Since the graveyards in the Koman-Kruje culture are situated in the
mountains, one should have in mind cattle breeders here. They lived in the area from
Mount Rumija to Ohrid Lake. Everything points to the fact that the bearers of the
Koman-Kruje culture arrived there at the end of the 7th century.
[42]
They were
probably settled in the region in order to defend the Durazzo-Salonica road, and they
were destroyed when the Bulgarians started spreading in the hinterland of Durazzo in
the 9th century.
Archaeological findings of the South Slav, Romanic, and Croatian tribes as well as of
the Koman-Kruje culture delineate the ethnic area of the Serbs. It is necessary to point
out that all the archaeological data on the Serbs coincide with those of their
neighbours.
The history of the Serbs in the 9th and 10th centuries is much better known thanks to
the work of Emperor Constantine VII. He was rather precise in delineating the
boundaries of the Serbian lands in the Littoral. According to him the Serbs lived in
Duklja, Travunia and Konavle, Zahumlje, Pagania, and Serbia. The first to come
across in the south-east was Duklja in the hinterland of Durazzo, Ljes, Bar, Kotor, and
Ulcinj. In the north-west, Pagania was the last Serbian land in the Littoral which
bordered on Croatia on the Cetina river. Zahumlje also bordered on Croatia "towards
the north". Duklja, Travunia, and Zahumlje bordered on Serbia by the mountains in
the hinterland. Serbia "...borders on Croatia in the north and on Bulgaria in the
south...," i.e. it reaches to the Croats on the Sava river in the north-west and to
Bulgaria on the Vardar river in the south-east. The boundaries of the coastal Croatia
were clearly defined, from the Cetina river to the town of Labin in Istria, with the
borders on Serbia "...towards the Cetina river and the town of Liven."
Of the eight towns in the principality of Serbia mentioned by Constantine VII the
location of almost none of them has yet been clearly defined. If we presume that the
towns were listed in some specific order, their locations could be more or less defined
based on our knowledge of the locations of the ones already found. The reliable data
show that the first of the listed towns Destinik was in Metohia.
[43]
The next two towns,
Cernavusk and Medjurecje were probably situated somewhere to the west of Metohia.
The following Dresneik could be Dreznik, the town near the Una river. Between
Dresneik and the town of Salines (undoubtedly Tuzla of today, the former Soli) was
Lesnik of unknown location. The last two towns, listed in Bosnia, but in the
principality of Serbia, were Kotor and Desnik. One of them was near Sarajevo, in the
area of Rogacici
[44]
or Ilidza
[45]
where some church remains of the period were
discovered. The other could be by Desetnik near the town of Kakanj.
The boundaries of Croatia are important for the delineation of the western boundaries
of the Serbs.
[46]
When Serbian Prince Czaslav died around 950, Croatia expanded to
the banovina (administrative unit) of Krbava, Lika and Gacko.
[47]
The data explaining
the concept of this administrative unit are found in the Annals of the Frankish
Kingdom although the Croats are not mentioned. Prince Borna (around 818-821) is
mentioned as the prince of the Guduscani, the people that undoubtedly lived in the
region of present-day Lika, i.e. between the Croatia in the Littoral and the Croatia on
the Sava river.
[48]
A little later, it is described how Prince Ljudevit's rebellion against
the Prankish authorities was crushed. In 822, Ljudevit fled from Sisak and found
shelter with one of the Serbian zhupans. He killed his host and tried to take over his
state but had to flee towards the sea where he was murdered. As mentioned earlier,
given the route which Prince Ljudevit had to take and the data on the state and the
town of Srb in the 14th century, it seems that he must have found shelter in today's
Srb near the headwaters of the Una river. Accordingly, in the 9th and 10th centuries,
in the farthest west, Serbia bordered on the region of Guduscani in today's Lika,
which was included in Croatia later on.
The area of the northern Croatia in the continental part has not been conclusively
established. That is why it is more difficult to define the northern boundaries of the
Serbs. The boundaries of Zagreb bishopric, constituted at the end of the 11th century,
show where the northern boundary of Serbia might have been. It is common in
Hungary that the territories of bishoprics coincide with the boundaries of
administrative regions. This means that the boundaries of the new bishopric were set
around the territory of the old principality with the seat in Zagreb. Thus, the southern
boundary of Zagreb bishopric, i.e. of the older principality on the Sava river, extended
in the direction Zrinska Gora - Bela Krajina.
[49]
So, in the 9th and 10th centuries, the
Serbs could reach the mesopotamia between the Una and Krka rivers with today's
Banija and Kordun (the regions favourable for cattle breeding). Given the structure of
the soil, the Serbs could spread over the mountains in the direction of Ogulin.
In the 9th century, Prince Kocelj (861-876) ruled the Lower Pannonia - Vukovo,
Srem, Macva. The name of the today's village of Koceljeva in Macva confirms that
Serbia bordered on Pannonia. Pope John VIII (872-882) wrote to the Serbian Prince
Mutimir (around 850-891/2) to subjugate his bishopric to the Pannonian archbishopric
of Saint Methodius.
[50]
This is just an additional proof that in the north Serbia
bordered directly on the regions ruled by Prince Kocelj. Scarce data on the Hungarian
inroads into our lands at the beginning of the 10th century cited that Zagreb, Pozega,
and Vukovo were looted while neither the Serbs nor Croats were mentioned.
[51]
This
proves that these towns were probably the seats of several principalities of the Croats,
Vilci (Wolves), and of the third tribe of an unknown name. At the time of Prince
Czaslav (927/928-around 950), the boundary of Serbia could reach the Drava and
Danube rivers.
[52]

In the north-east and east, the border shifted due to the clashes with Bulgaria. In the
mid 10th century, the Morava principality was situated somewhere in the region of
Sumadija, the Morava river basin and Branicevo.
[53]
Based on the location of this
principality, the north-east boundary of Serbia coincided approximately with the
boundary of Roman Dalmatia - from Mount Cer to Mount Rudnik. Then the border
ran southward, between the Zapadna /Western/ and Juzna /Southern/ Morava river
basins. It is now difficult to define where exactly the southern boundary was, but it
should be somewhere on the watershed of the Morava and Vardar rivers, and on the
watershed of the Vardar and Drim rivers.

Fig. 2. Serbs in the middle of the 10th century

The archaeological data on the Serbs in the 9th and 10th centuries are too scarce to be
used for defining their ethnic area. If compared to the neighbouring countries, known
for their numerous sometimes lavish findings, one could get a completely wrong idea
about the Serbia of the period. Capital cities, towns, and the seats of bishoprics have
not been explored in the Serbian region. Some examples, however, show that this
could be a wrong conclusion. The Church of SS Peter and Paul in Ras is the only
original bishopric church of the Slavs which is still more or less unchanged. This is a
rare example of at least one thousand years long tradition and
continuity.
[54][55]
Another clear proof is the preserved portion of the potter's inscription
in Glagolitic about the volume of the jug from Cecan, Kosovo.
[56]
This not only
speaks of the widespread literacy, but also of the stage of development of the state in
which the units of measurement were used and the taxes were fixed. At present, we
can only speculate about the significant role which Serbia played in the world of the
Slavs.
Archaeology cannot shed more light on the period of the 11th and 12th centuries,
either. Although the foreign relations changed, the Serbian state was still powerful and
more or less of the same size. During the rule of King Mihailo (around 1055-1082)
and Constantine Bodin (around 1082-1101), Serbia was a serious adversary of the
neighbouring countries. It is worth mentioning the Crusaders' journey under Raymond
of Toulouse in the winter of 1096/1097. They travelled for almost 40 days through
"Slavonia" (Sclavonia), from the western border to Scutari where they were met by
King Bodin.
[57]
Considering the length of the journey, they probably entered Serbia
somewhere in Lika, the westernmost region of Serbia.
In the south-east, the Serbs lived in Kosovo and their southern boundary was
somewhere on the Drim river near Mount Debar.
[58]
In the neighbourhood, somewhere
in the region of Elbasan and Tirana, the "Arbani" (Albanians) were being mentioned
from the middle of the 11th century.
[59]

The schism of the Church and the appearance of Bogumilism had a rather negative
impact on the Serbs. Under the pressure of the Hungarians and Rome, in the crusades,
the north-west parts of Serbia were taken from it. Later, these parts united under the
name of Bosnia. Throughout many centuries, there were constant attempts to convert
the Serbian and other Slav population to Catholicism and to include them into a
nameless Slav corpus in the Hungarian state. However, a continuous mentioning of
the "schismatics" in the mesopotamia between the Sava and Drava rivers, and in
Vojvodina show that the Slavonic, i.e. the Orthodox Christian Church service had
remained uninterrupted until the Turks came.
[60]
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the
Orthodox Slavs in Hungary could not be differentiated from the Serbs, either because
the Serbs had lived there before or because they were assimilated.
The territorial ratio of the Orthodox Church to the Catholic Church is evident in the
distribution of the epigraphs. Until the 13th century, Cyrillic monuments spread to the
island of Brac and the Cetina river in the west, and in the hinterland they reached the
original Bosnia.
[61]
Later on, in the 14th and 15th centuries, epigraphs became more
numerous, and very common on tombstones. They were recorded west of the line:
Mljet (island) - Peljesac (peninsula) - Gradacac - Pakrac (towns).
[62]
A considerable
number of Latin epigraphic monuments were also discovered, especially in the
Littoral. However, the Slav population could be differentiated by them only in some
rare cases. After 1248, when Rome once again allowed the use of the Glagolitic
alphabet, many Glagolitic inscriptions appeared.
[63]
The arrangement of these
inscriptions coincided with the spreading of the Cyrillic alphabet in the west.
Insignificant overlaps show that there were no significant shifting of the Serbs
towards the west. Thus the western boundary of the Serbian ethnic area was
determined in the late Middle Ages.

Fig. 3.- Distribution of the medieval epigraphic monuments

The original ethnic area of the Serbs kept its cultural homogenity although they were
divided in ten or so small states from the end of the 14th century. The best examples
of the above are the tombstones. These tombstones are massive and usually in the
form of different casks. Some of them are ornamented either with small figures,
symbolic drawings or some other ornaments. The Serbian art is well known and has
attracted much attention ever since. For long, propaganda has presented these
tombstones as a form of the Bogumil art, which was wrong.
[64]
Inscriptions on the
tombstones are all in Cyrillic.
Graveyards with tombstones were situated in the same area where the old pagan
graveyards with burial mounds were. This means that the settlements probably were
nearby, and that the old cattle breeders' way of life was preserved. With the spreading
of the Serbian cattle breeders towards the west (the Vlachs) the use of the tombstones
increased and there were many of them in Dalmatia and in theKrajina, from the
Cetina river to Lika and Pakrac.
Graveyards with tombstones are located by the churches, both the destroyed ones and
those still in existence where people are being buried.
[65]
As a rule, these churches
face east, the Orthodox churches, as the tombstones themselves. Very rarely these
churches and contemporary graveyards with tombstones are Catholic. When it is
possible to determine the original appearance of the present-day Catholic church it
becomes obvious that these churches are the remodelled ones. For example, St.
George's Church in Cavtat, surrounded by broken tombstones, has a flat wall on the
east side. But in the altar, a semicircular apse can be seen in the floor. In Mokro Polje,
by Zavodje near Knin, in a preserved graveyard with tombstones, there are church
ruins with semicircular apse. The apse passes into a flat wall towards east, as in
Cavtat. This allows a supposition that all the churches located in the graveyards with
tombstones used to be Orthodox churches.
At the locations of the tombstones, pottery from the same period was collected during
archaeological excavations. This is the pottery characteristic of the Serbian Dinaric
region, unpolished, made on a slow wheel. The pottery is represented mostly by
cooking pots with long open brim, without ornaments or variegated with wavelike
impressions, stripes and small pits. At the bottom they could have a seal print from the
wheel. They were found in the fortified towns westward of the Drina river
[66]
and in
the explored monasteries in the region of the Despotovina.
[67]
They date back to the
time of the Turkish inroads - the late 14th and 15th centuries. Such pottery is the
characteristic of the original Serbian ethnic area preserved until the present. The
locations of the workshops with slow wheels in the 20th century coincide with the
locations where the pots of the same make were found in the 14th and 15th centuries;
even the appearance or the pots was the same.
[68][69]


Fig. 4. - Tombstones in the 14th-16th centuries

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Serbian ethnic area in the east was formed.
After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, the Nemanyich shifted the borders of
Serbia towards the east and south. Ac the time of Emperor Stephen Dushan, the
eastern border ran from Djerdap to the Struma river valley, and it reached the Gulf of
Corinth in the south. These events and the borders are well-known thanks to the
written historical data. The cultural monuments of the Serbs and other Slavs in the
liberated and annexed regions somewhat differed due to the Byzantine influence. Still,
although many churches have been preserved, there are not very many archaeological
data related to the Vardar and Struma river basins.
The region which pretty much coincided with the idea of today's central Serbia was
formed at the time of Prince Lazar (1371-1389). Although constantly threatened by
the Turks, the Serbs developed material and spiritual culture under the strong
influence of theologians, artists, and craftsmen from Constantinople and Thessaloniki.
Cultural and industrial peak was reached at the time of the Despotovina. In the sense
of archaeology, apart from unique churches and towns, the Serbian Despotovina was
known for its jewellery and especially for the pottery. Glazed bowls, dishes, plates,
jugs, and flasks bear specific ornaments impressed in "zgraphito" technique. Cooking
pots were mostly made on a fast wheel. They had long open brims and were
ornamented alternately with ribs with small pits and an engraved ornament.
The pottery of the Serbian Despotovina is also known in the region of Kljuc and the
Negotin Krajina.
[70]
After Turkey had annexed Vidin in 1396, these regions became a
part of Serbia and remained within the Serbian boundaries until the fall of the
Despotovina under the Turkish rule in 1459. Although there are no specific historical
data,
[71]
this is confirmed by the existence of the pottery. The distribution of the
findings of this special pottery makes it possible for archaeologists to follow the
movements of the Serbs caused by the Muslim invasion. In southern Hungary (today's
Vojvodina, the mesopotamia between the Sava and Drava rivers, Baranja), among the
pieces of pottery of central European style, it is easy to discern the rougher Serbian
pottery pieces dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as the pieces of the
Byzantine style.
[72]


Fig. 5. - Distribution of the late medieval Serbian pottery




This survey based on the available archaeological data has pointed to the
undoubted continuity on the Serbian ethnic area. This is the area that has not
undergone any considerable changes since the 7th century. Certain spreading of
the Serbian people is understandable since the Serbs have always been the most
numerous Slav people in the Balkans.
Footnotes
1. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando Imperio, ed. Gy. Moravcsik,
English translation by R. J. H. Jenkins (Budapest, 1949).
2. Milica and Djordje Jankovic, Sloveni u jugoslovenskom Podunavlju /The Slavs in
the Yugoslav Danube Basin/ (Belgrade: Muzej grada Beograda, 1990), pp.
20,25.
3. Georgiy A. Haburgaev, Etnonimiya "Povesti vremennih let" (Moscow:
Izdatelstvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1979). pp.210-212.
4. Povest vremennih let (Moscow, Leningrad: Akademiya nauk SSSR, 1990),
pp.11, 207.
5. Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenugend veroffentlichte Texte der
Notitiae episcopatuum (Munich, 1901), pp. 538-545.
6. Jovanka Kalic, "Naziv Raska u starijoj srpskoj istoriji (IX-XII vek)," /Name Rashka
in the Early Serbian History (9th-12th centuries)/ in Zbornik Filozofskog
fakulteta, XIV-1 (Belgrade, 1979), pp. 79-91.
7. Sima Cirkovic, Istorija srpskog naroda /History of the Serbian People/
(Belgrade: SKZ, 1982) II, p.376
8. Anne Comnene, Alexiade (Regne de L'Empereur Alexis I Comnene 1081-1118)
II, pp. l57:3-l6; 1.66: 25-169. Texte etabli er traduit par B. Leib t. I-III (Paris,
1937-1945).
9. Nada Klaic, Povijest Hrvata u ranom srednjem vijeku /History of the Croats in
the early Middle Ages/ (Zagreb: Skolska knjiga, 1975), p. 211.
10. Raimundi de Aguilers canonici Podiensis Historia Francorum qui ceperunt
Iherusalem, Recueil des historiens des croisades (Paris, 1866), p. 237.
11. Viaggio in Dalmazia dell'abate Alberto Fortis (Venezia, 1774), 1, 2.
12. Zeljko Skalamera and Marko Popovic, "Novi podaci sa plana Beograda iz
1683." /New Data from the Map of Belgrade of 1683/ in Godisnjak pada
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13. Nada Klaic, Povijest Hrvata u razvijenom srednjem vijeku /History of the
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14. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Cap. 30.
15. A. Meineke ed. Ioannis Cinnami epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis
gestarum (Bonnae, 1836), pp. 102:18, 103:19.
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18. Vidukind Korveyskiy, Deyanija Saksov, ed. G. E. Santchuk (Moscow: "Nauka",
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Dr Djordje Jankovic

Assistant Professor in the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy,
University of Belgrade. He teaches Medieval Archaeology from the 4th to the 17th
centuries. He has published about twenty scientific papers in medieval archaeology, in
particular within the area of Slav Archaeology.

Books
Podunavski deo oblasti akvisa u VI i pocetkom VII veka /The Danube Basin
Section of the Province of Akvis in the 6th and at the beginning of the 7th
century/ (1981)
Sloveni u jugoslovenskom Podunavlju /The Slavs in the Yugoslav Section of the
Danube Basin (1990, Co-author with M. Jankovic)
Srpske gromile /Serbian Tumuls/ (1998).







The Serbian Questions in the Balkans, Faculty of Geography, Belgrade, 1995.