Roman funerary monuments from St John’s burial ground in Livno:a contribution to the study of Roman necropolises in the Livno polje

Abstract

The complexity and multiple strata of St John’s burial ground in Livno have been identified from movable artefacts and architectural remains from various periods, from the late Bronze and early Iron Ages through the Roman period and late Antiquity to the early and late mediaeval periods. Along with the remains of an early Christian basilica and late mediaeval monastery dedicated to St John the Baptist, movable artefacts suggest that
there was a Roman necropolis here, where cremation was the most common form of burial. The most numerous finds from the Roman period are broken pieces of funerary monuments, most of them from the stone ossuaries in which the bones of the deceased were laid. Two types of ossuary are represented – those carved from a single block of stone, and those composed of interlocking stone slabs. To date the closest analogy is an
unpublished slab ossuary from Štitić in Suhača, where it is believed there was also a Roman necropolis. Though they are recognizably of Eastern or Mediterranean origin, their distinctive features reveal that they are of more local provenance, made in stonemasons’ workshops in the Livno polje. Their various decorative features and symbols, concentrated on the front and sides of the ossuary, reflect the cult to which the deceased or the
community belonged, and include an original religious component.