New Archaeological Excavations at Pavlovac Castle Conducted as Part of the STONE Project

This year, Pavlovac Castle near Prača was again the site of archaeological fieldwork conducted as part of the STONE Project (in which ZRC SAZU collaborates with Edin Bujak and Enes Dedić from the University of Sarajevo, Monika Milosavljević from the University of Belgrade, and Krish Seetah from Stanford University). Partnering with the Regional Museum of Goražde and its curator Admir Džemidžić, the project team has returned to uncovering the secrets of the Pavlović noble family, whose members were the first victims of the Turkish incursions west of the Drina River.

"Two out of three locations were in the castle itself, within the upper courtyard, in the tower known as Crkvina at the highest point, and in a small sinkhole among the overgrown ruins of buildings in the Upper Castle," explains the project leader, Dr. Saša Čaval. Our most striking discovery at Crkvina was a gabled stećak with a pedestal, suggesting that the church may have served not only as a place of worship but also as a mausoleum. The extremely small number of such medieval castles or churches in the lowlands of Bosnia and Herzegovina make our discovery even more significant, both for archaeological science and for understanding the Pavlović family, about which very little is known from historical written sources."

The archaeological probe, designated as TT1, provided the researchers with a completely different set of data concerning life at the medieval Pavlovac Castle. Numerous finds of disarticulated animal bones, shards of ceramic vessels, and fragments of glass goblets offer insight into the daily diet during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. On the other hand, metal finds, predominantly consisting of arrowheads and broadheads, reveal that the castle played a crucial strategic and defensive role by controlling the important medieval market of Prača and the trade route connecting the Adriatic coast and the interior.

Fieldwork also continued at the Podgrad necropolis, where four new graves were unearthed in addition to the three graves discovered last year. “The most surprising discovery was that of the previously unknown stećak (no. 26). Although the excavations carried out in the circular stone structure to the north of the stećci burial site have not yielded clear answers, they nonetheless indicate that the settlement in the Pavlovac area traces back to as early as the prehistoric period,” says Čaval.

This year’s excavations at Pavlovac, in which Dr. Lucija Grahek from ZRC SAZU also participated, confirmed yet again that this extraordinary medieval castle served not solely as an important military and strategic stronghold but also as a space of daily life, memory, and enduring settlement. According to the project leader, every new probe, every grave, as well as every single piece of ceramics, glass, or metal raises new questions regarding the role of Pavlovac in medieval Bosnia and the life of people who shaped, used, and left the area. “These excavations continue the STONE Project’s fundamental mission, which is to integrate the stećci, burial sites, architecture, landscape, and communities into a broader story about the medieval past of the Western Balkans. Pavlovac provides us with a remarkable opportunity to understand the legacy of the Pavlović noble family through material traces which are returning to our consciousness after centuries of oblivion,” concludes Dr. Čaval.