The remnants of our pre-Christian beliefs around Ljubuški in Herzegovina

Abstract

In the last few decades, various branches of science, especially philology with the analysis of ancient ritual texts, toponomastic research and comparative studies of oral tales in the folklore tradition of different populations, have significantly contributed to the new knowledge of ancient beliefs and gods worshiped throughout Europe, in the period before Christianity was completely established. I have discussed these issues on several occasions, by classifying such remains in Croatia, in the new finds or the monuments that were previously known, but were interpreted differently - both chronologically and iconographically. I relied on several interesting artefacts from Dalmatia: the bronze gilded cross-shaped shackles from the early medieval cemetery in Nin, the four-headed idol from Vaćan and the equestrian relief from Žrnovnica, and, for this occasion, an old find from the area of Ljubuški, now kept in the Museum of Humac. Namely, there is a rustic and almost schematically carved head on the fragment of one pillar, which can be said to be part of the idol of a Slavic deity, with great likelihood, given several artistic analogies. The text also draws attention to the iconographic features of the face, such as the prominent mustache and triangular beard, which have some other characterizations that can be assumed to represent precisely the pre-Christian deities - in our case Perun.