Necropolis Tombs Crkvine
History
In the area of the village Krajcinovići, 20 kilometers from Priboj on the left coast of the river Poblacenica, in the gate of the village church from the 16th century, there is a huge necropolis of tombstones. They are believed to date from the 14th and 15th centuries.1 Today, the necropolis is located on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, and in the Middle Ages, the entire region belonged to Bosnia. It is very poorly researched, and its area is about a hectare. There are other necropolises in the Priboj area nearby, among which the one in Cassidol should be singled out. All of them are very similar to the necropolises that are still in Bosnia today.
Cultural site details
For the most part, the monuments have grown and neglected, and several monolithic slabs have been used to build a building or fence in the gate. Archaeological excavations at this site have not been carried out, tombstones and plaques have only been recorded and enumerated, some of them described.
In the necropolis there are 17 tombstones here, of which 12 are chests, 2 slabs, 2 gabled and 1 pillar. All visible monuments are very large. Boxes are usually without a stand, and the same applies to gables. In addition to these tombstones, the number of slabs, less visible, unworked, or simply sunk into the ground, exceeds 70. There is no square in the vicinity from which the stone for such a large necropolis could be exploited, which indicates that the tombstones were made elsewhere, and then brought. The orientation of the tombstones is usually east - west, although there are a couple of tombstones oriented northwest - southeast. Next to the necropolis of tombstones is a modern cemetery, whose earliest burials date back to the 19th century. There are 4 prehistoric tumuli in the necropolis, on which we have 2 tombstones. Of the excavated tombstones, there are very few that have ornaments. The chest without a stand, which is both round and has semicircular shapes on the upper side, is decorated on the upper side with a relief motif of a sword with an apple handle. The chest with the pedestal, which is located within the stone fence, and turned sideways, has a relief representation of a double ax on one side. One of the chests has a sword and a handle, but the tip of the sword was destroyed. This limestone tombstone is oriented southeast - northeast. One of the tombstones is decorated with a spear. The most interesting is the depiction of a sword on a shield, which can represent a heraldic motif, the family coat of arms of the deceased.
Such a large necropolis, with exceptional examples of tombstones, deserves serious archaeological research, so that data on this region and in terms of tombstones from the Middle Ages can be collected, and to better understand the past of the Lim Valley.