Rare archaeological find from Avar period unearthed in Vinkovci

(Photo: Ivan Bosancic/Facebook)

ZAGREB, April 27 (Hina) – A rare find of remains of an Avar warrior and a belt set that can be dated to the turn of the 7th to the 8th century, has been found at the Vinkovci Cemetery by archaeologists, the city museum in that eastern Croatian town confirmed on Monday.

While conducting archaeological research at the city cemetery in Vinkovci, which had started before the coronavirus pandemic and resumed these days, and investigating Avar graves, discovered by workers who had been expanding burial plots, archaeologists of the city museum unearthed remains of an Avar warrior and a set belt that can be dated to the turn of the 7th to the 8th century, which is, according to Vinkovci city museum archaeologist Anita Rapan-Papesa, a very valuable find.

(Photo: Ivan Bosancic/Facebook)

She said that previously there had been no Avar graves in Vinkovci, but that it was a known fact that there had been Avars in the area. “When we observe the walled grave we have discovered, it turns out that Avars saw how Romans were buried so they made their own copies of Roman graves,” the archaeologist specialising in the Middle Ages said.

(Photo: Ivan Bosancic/Facebook)

In addition to the walled grave, the archaeologists explored an ordinary earthen grave, where they found a warrior and his horse, with unique bridle ornaments.

(Photo: Ivan Bosancic/Facebook)

(Photo: Ivan Bosancic/Facebook)

Rapan-Papeša underscored that the border of the protected archaeological site in Vinkovci went through the middle of the field where the Avar graves had been unearthed and that they were the westernmost graves in the area of the former Roman city of Cibalae. There are five more Avar graves to be explored, and as the work on expanding burial plots in the city cemetery in Vinkovci continues, further archaeological research will continue, as well.