An Analysis of Small Finds from Archaeological Investigations near the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Donja Glogovnica

Cilj rada bio je s arheološkog aspekta obraditi izvore dostupne za kaštel kod crkve Uznesenja Blažene Djevice Marije u Donjoj Glogovnici. Osim arheološke, povijesne i povijesno-umjetničke literature, korišteni su i terenski dnevnici g. Zorana Homena, nekadašnjeg ravnatelja Gradskog muzeja Križevci, koji je vodio arheološka iskopavanja tijekom 1998., 1999. i 2001. godine u Donjoj Glogovnici. U članku se ukratko osvrćemo na problematiku viteških, odnosno crkvenih redova vezanih uz ovaj lokalitet, koji je u kasnijim fazama kategoriziran kao crkva-utvrda, kao i na romaničke nalaze arhitektonske plastike koji potječu s tog lokaliteta. Naposljetku je opisan i katalogiziran materijal pronađen tijekom spomenutih iskopavanja. Poseban naglasak ide na ovdje prvi puta obrađenu arheološku građu iz arheoloških istraživanja.The goal of the paper was to analyse the available sources on the castle near the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Donja Glogovnica from an archaeological aspect, while special emphasis was placed on the description and catalogue of material found during archaeological excavations in 1998, 1999 and 2001. There are numerous profane fortifications and sacral monuments in the vicinity of Križevci, while the high number of castles, forts and churches tells us how important the town was during the Middle Ages. The domus of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre is mentioned in Donja Glogovnica, while the layout and the findings of architectural plastic art that shows the members of the Order serve as evidence of the existence of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre Church. The layout (fig. 1) shows the foundation of the church, upon which another church church was later built. The church itself is classified as a fortified church due to its elevated position and defensive ditch which is visible even today. Churches on elevated positions were often fortified, and sometimes even their bell-towers had a defensive purpose. The Glogovnica prepositure complex, which was erected under provosts Osvaldo and Andrija Alfons Thus in the 15th century, had exactly such a defensive role since such fortifications were erected in our region for defensive purposes during Ottoman attacks. The question where the members of the Order lived often arises and the term domus is mentioned with terms castellum (castle, 1500), fortalicium (1543) and castrum (1553) in many documents, which would mean that their domus served as a castle, that is some kind of fort. The problem arises due to fact that there are no documents that determine the precise location of the domus, that is the castle. A visual inspection of the site points to the fact that a medieval castle stood exactly in that sport, north of the church. The plateau on which the castle was located is horseshoe shaped, while the central fort had a quadrangular layout with arched corners which means that defensive towers existed in those spots. Such towers are characteristic for the period in which firearms – that is artillery – were used, while the findings of a ceramic mould for pouring lead cannon-balls from a refuse pit, as well as the findings of stone cannon-balls date the castle to the period from the second half of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century. Archaeological material found during the three stages of archaeological investigations was compared with other medieval materials and it was concluded that most of the material from Donja Glogovnica can be dated into the Late Middle Ages or even later according to the forms and ways of decoration. The findings of stove tiles, as well as maiolica which are typologically and chronologically very sensitive and were all dated to the 15th century and the very beginning of the 16th century make datation a lot easier. It is not possible to produce a precise datation in this case due to the fact that there still are no local publications on the typology of medieval ceramics based on absolute datation analyses of safe archaeological contexts, which is of exceptional necessity for the comparison of material and determination of a more precise datation on the basis of a typological-chronological classification. No radiocarbon analysis of samples from archaeological wholes was conducted at this site, which is also the case at other sites in the vicinity of Donja Glogovnica and the wider sub-Kalnik area, and we are missing reference sources for a typological-chronological analysis. But it is possible to claim that all of this corresponds to the context of the second half of the 15th century, when this object with multiple cells could have been erected. In that moment the site itself went through a change of character with the addition of a defensive function to the sacral one, whereby this fortified church thus became one of the defensive points in a network of small fortifications of the gradište type, castles and fortified churches of the medieval Croatian-Hungarian Kingdom