Late Antique Necropolis in Zmajevac

If you are intrigued by the valuable excavations of the late antique necropolis located in the village of Zmajevac in Baranja County, but do not have an opportunity to visit them in person, we suggest you check out Zagreb’s Archaeological Museum. There you can view the large multimedia exhibition dedicated to the aforementioned excavations, which will immerse you in the magical, and often mystical, world of archaeological research.

“The Late Antique Necropolis in Zmajevac” is the title of the latest exhibition, which opened in mid-July at Zagreb’s Archaeological Museum, and will remain open until September 30th. The exhibition presents the research conducted on the excavations of the late antique necropolis (“the city of the dead”) in the town of Zmajevac in Baranja County. The exhibition is not a conventional presentation of everything that has been found at the excavation site but, rather, the theme is much more entertaining and comprehensive. The part that presents the finds is certainly an important aspect of the exhibition, but the other component presents the results of the systematic, ten-year protective archaeological research, which was undertaken during that period at the excavation site; this is precisely what makes this exhibition unique. Its author, Slavica Filipović – the Chief Curator of the Archaeological department at the Museum of Slavonija in Osijek – conceived the entire exhibition as a modern multimedia show, which immerses viewers into the magical world of archaeological research by means of imagery, sound and the very ambiance itself. Above all, the exhibit consists of truly fascinating and extremely valuable objects dating from the Roman Empire.

The story of the site began, as it usually happens, completely by chance. In January 1998, during extensive reconstruction in one of the wine cellars in Baranja, a collapse revealed three Roman tombs with skeletal remains as along with various treasures, which indicated the importance of the find. Systematic protective archaeological research began in the autumn of 1999, and it continued through until 2008. A surface area of 1700 square meters was explored and excavated to reveal 175 graves with numerous valuable finds, which once again drew the attention of specialists, as well as the general public, toward the valuable archaeological finds in the north-eastern part of the Croatian Baranja, the former border of the Roman Empire (the Danube limes).