Ranobizantijske oklopne lamele sa Gradine u Biogracima kod Širokog Brijega

Abstract

In this paper named Early Byzantine armored lamellae from the Gradina in Biograci near Široki Brijeg,the subject of determination and identification are the remains of lamellar armor found in 1969/1970 at the LateAntique site of Gradina in Biograci. A part of the armored lamellae from Biograci was published in the workof Irma Čremošnik in 1989, where they were identified as part of a military belt, respectively a fitting for a belt.Identification of materials as armor lamellae was performed on the basis of analogies of lamellae or whole lamellaarmor from geographically nearest localities such as Kranj v Lajh in Slovenia and Svetinja in Serbia, but thereare also some typological similarities of these lamellae with the same material found at Gradac on Ilinjača nearSarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina.In addition to the basic issue of identification, special accent is placed on the issue of dating lamellae from Biograci.So far, about a hundred parts or whole lamellar armor has been found throughout Europe from the Caucasus inthe east to Spain in the west. All are mostly dated to the second half of the 6th and the7th century, when lamellaearmor was introduced into Byzantine military equipment and among the Germans and Avars because of a changein war tactics. Due to its convenient position, Gradina on Biograci was constantly inhabited from prehistorictimes to the developed Middle Ages which influenced the mixing of Roman and late antique materials and madeit difficult to identify and date this material during excavations.According to some authors, lamellar armor of the second half of the 6th century is considered an elite militaryequipment and thus a status symbol. Their appearance on Biograci is a rare and unique find in Bosnia andHerzegovina’s early byzantine site.