Toponimi "Berakela" i "Krupac"

Abstract

This study deals with the epithet and ktetic Beracelenόs, Berakelian on a votive plaque, dedicated to Apollo and Asclepius from the village of Krupac which is some eight kilometers from the town of Pirot. Taking into consideration the opinions presented in the literature, the study presents the following thoughts on the topic: The ancient name of the village of Krupac is Thracian and it reads Berakela (*Beracέl(l)a, *Beracέl(l)e) which would literally mean dark spring or muddy spring and before it became the name of the place, it was the name of the fracture, mostly thermo-mineral spring of Krupačka banjica near Krupačka močvara swamp which is a (fish)pond today, created by the water release. The contemporary name of the village Krupac could have been at first a local name for an area of dry land in the middle of the swamp and would have read *Krupa referring to the original location of the place on the higher ground than the fracture, mostly thermo-mineral spring of Krupačka banjica near the Krupačka močvara swamp which is today's (fish)pond, created by the water release. The contemporary name Krupac i.e. the dialectal form Krup'c would thus be formed from the original name of the village with the adjective krupski, *Krupsko selo or similar and via the old locative singular *v Krupsci (selѣ) or similar, and in the younger form *v Krupci, from which the new nominative form Krupac (Krup'c) was then created. The village of Krupac got its ancient name Berakela and the modern one Krupac could have got from the local fracture, mostly thermal-mineral spring Krupačka banjica and the nearby Krupačka močvara swamp which is a (fish)pond today, created by the spring - in ancient times by the spring and swamp and more recently by the strip of dry land in the middle of that spring and nearby swamp, where the village itself was originally created.