During June and July 2014, at the site of Zadruzni Dom in Skelani,
archaeological investigations of the late antique building were carried out,
whose rooms were first discovered in the course of archaeological excavations
in 2008. The building has a rectangular base, of a northeast-southwest
orientation, with the discovered part measuring 20.90 x 30.90 m. What is
distinguishable within the asymmetrical base is an entrance, along with
eleven rooms, two of which have apses, and a peristyle, i.e. an inner
courtyard with a roofed corridor surrounding it which connects all the rooms
of the building. During the archaeological excavations, entrance thresholds
and extremely well preserved mortar floors with mortar skirting were noted in
most rooms, along with traces of fresco painting on the walls and mosaic
floors, executed in the opus tesselatum technique, observed in several rooms,
the peristyle and the encompassing corridor. The discovered mosaic fragments
are decorated with geometric motifs in the form of a swastika, a Solomon?s
knot, a square, a rhomboid, overlapping circles, etc. and floral motifs of
ivy and petals, as well as a double braid motif. Small but, unfortunately,
fragmented pieces of a mosaic with a figural representation were discovered
in the central part of the peristyle, while the mosaic in room K was
decorated with a motif portraying the winged head of Medusa. Two construction
phases were noted, an older and a younger, with the walls, which were two
Roman feet wide and built from dressed stone, and the older mortar floor
belonging to the older construction phase, and the second, younger
construction phase comprising mosaics, fresco painting, the younger mortar
floor and two furnaces. Contemplating the planimetry of the building, one
gets the impression of the rooms being divided between two parts - public and
private, whereby the public part of the building would be located near the
main entrance hall and would comprise rooms A, B, C, D and F, with mortar
floors and traces of fresco painting on the walls. The other, possibly
private, part of the building would include five rooms G, H, I, J and K and
the inner courtyard. Rooms I, J and K had floor and wall heating, while rooms
G and H had an arched apse and possibly functioned as a reception hall and/or
a stibadium. The hallway with mosaics, which flanks the inner courtyard, was
most likely roofed. Traces of burning in the north-western corridor testify
to the destruction of the building in a fire. Based on the architectural
elements and the traces of fresco painting and mosaics in the building at the
site of Zadruzni Dom in Skelani, it can be deduced that this is a late
antique building which can roughly be dated to the period between the end of
the 3rd and the mid-4th century AD, and whose lavish decoration implies that
it was owned by an affluent resident of Skelani from the aforementioned
period.
Ceramic finds from the Byzantine fort of Gradina on the island of Žirje
