Pre-Romanesque Sarcophagi in Early Medieval Dalmatia

Abstract

In this paper the author studies all of the known examples of Pre-Romanesque sarcophagi in Dalmatia i.e. in the towns of Zadar, Trogir, Split, Dubrovnik and Kotor. Most of these examples are completely preserved while two of them are actually a fragment of the lid with an inscription from Trogir and a short side from Dubrovnik. In general, Dalmatian sarcophagi are decorated with shallow reliefs, mostly on the fronts but sometimes on the sides. The sarcophagus from Kotor, though, is the only one having no decoration at all but provided with an inscription mentioning the departed spouses from the beginning of the 9th century. The richest decoration is found on the sarcophagi with arcaded fronts from Zadar. These sarcophagi have no preserved inscriptions except for the example lavishly decorated on the coffin and the lid, that seems to have had an inscription, later erased. The fragment from Trogir makes it clear that the entire side of the double-pitched lid had been covered with a long inscription divided in several lines as one can deduce from the remaining inscription. The three examples from Split belong to the most interesting group since their inscriptions are entirely preserved. Their fronts are decorated with identical reliefs placed inside the casettes or arcades. The earlier examples have shorter inscriptions along the border of the coffin or the lid while the later ones have them under the central arcade on the front. The earliest example, the one of the (Arch)Bishop John has the shortest inscription and its decoration of lily crosses is still in the spirit of Liutprand's renaissance so it should be dated to the second half of the 8th century. Connected to this sarcophagus is a group of reliefs from the cathedral at Split. The sarcophagus of Peter, ninth-century prior of Split, imitates somewhat awkwardly the ornamented casettes of John's sarcophagus but the inscription is more detailed. The third sarcophagus from Split is the one of Archbishop John from about 930 and it is decorated differently, with palmette crosses under the arcades. The inscription is under the central arcade and its content is inspired by the former examples. Later sarcophagi from the second half of the 10th century have no decoration but the epitaphs are becoming richer in content as one can see in the epitaph of queen Jelena from 976 or in the epitaph of Martin, the Archbishop of Split from the year 1000.