Duke Branimir’s Sarcophagus

Abstract

According to old sources, on 6 March 1891, on Crkvina in Biskupija near Knin, where the remnants of St. Mary’s Church and the palatium of Croatian rulers are situated, a stone sarcophagus was excavated in the deepest strata of the northern part of the nartex (“lobby and morgue” - the area marked as the ruler’s mausoleum in the ground floor of the Westwork). Based on an analysis of the data on the find and on a comparison of three significant elements (gold-plated spurs with Carolingian features, with a set of fittings mostly adorned with Christian motifs, produced by local workshops in the second half of the 9th century; a stone sarcophagus carved out of a massive Roman architrave with remnants of a high-quality relief of two opposite hypocampi in an elaborated framework; a sarcophagus lid with a carved flat Latin cross with branching upper arms which are reminiscent of a ruler’s crown), along with the gold coins of Constantine V Copronymus and his son Leo IV from the Syracuse mint (between 760 and 775 AD), the author believes that this monument of Croatian cultural and historic heritage should be considered as Duke Branimir’s sarcophagus dated at the end of the 9th century.