Irklid Ristani

During the expedition of this year, the work of the team was focused on the main quarter of the village (Kamenicë) and the suburb areas (Jominai, Qafë Katie and the modern village of Palavli). The quarter of Kamenicë. A prospection has been made in the south-west area, in the top of the big hill, in the buildings across the street Qafa e Pazarit and in the square with the same name. During the survey of this year, were studied 36 new houses (14-49) of the well-known type called “half-floor”. The fortified house no. 2 was completed, with the structures of the houses attached to it and the surrounding wall of the court that separate it from the church no. 1 in the north and the church no. 2 on the west side. The houses attached to the tower of the complex are similar to each other and with the houses of the village, as they belong to the same type, have the same technique of the walls. Between the house 2 and 3 of the complex there is a narrow channel for the collection of the rain water, which ends into a small pit. The churches of the village have a simple plan, a unique nave with a narthex on the west side and a court surrounded by high walls. Meksi-Riza in their surveys have studied seven churches spread throughout the village. During the work of this year there has been found a new church no. 12 similar to the others, in the square called Bregu i Kishës, near the cemetery of the village. For its construction were used carved blocks, around the ruins of the church there are traces of graves build with stone slabs. Jominai area is situated on the south-east of Kamenica, on the left side of Qafëdardha stream and in the north-east of Fiqt’ e Lape. There were found a church (no. 10) with part of continued walls on the south-west, which may belong to a monastery. The church has a three-conch plan, placed in the axis east-west, with three apses semi-circular from the inside. The nave is rectangular with dimensions 3,97 x 3-3,55 m and has a door (1,02 m) in the middle of the west wall. The east apse is preserved in almost all its height and has a small window circumscribed with tiles on the three sides and with a pumice slab. The church seems to be covered with a two-plan roof, while the apses with a semi-dome. In the ruins there were pieces of wall paintings colored in white, blue and red. Also there were found fragments of an amphora ornate with floral design (2nd half of XV sec. – 1st half of XVII sec.). Near the church, on the east side, there were found the ruins of a house of the type “half-floor”, but without the court and the surrounding walls. In the modern village of Palavli, the survey brought to light the church no. 11. It has a simple plan, a unique nave with a semi-circular apse with a simple synthron. The walls with width 0,65 – 0,70 m are built with tuff stone with lime mortar. The pottery found in the village of Kamenicë consists mainly in exemplars of tableware, pantry and storage ware and a fragmented oil-lamp coated with a thick vitreous glaze. The coarse kitchen ware is less represented with a total of only two or three fragments of body and handle; was also found a handmade baking pan, with poorly fired fabric, a convex profile and rounded rim, used to bake bread throughout the territory of Albania until the XX century. The majority of represented forms are cups with a low ring-base, hemispherical bowls, plates, blue-white painted jugs with pear-shaped bodies’ knife-trimmed disc-bases and flared necks. The types are characteristic for this historical period, “maiolica”, “maiolica azzurra berettina colorata”, “maiolica azzurra berettina”, “ceramica graffita policroma”, “invetriata monocroma”, “alla porcellana”, “ingobbiata e graffita” etc. The storage ware is represented by a jar with a paunchy body, a high neck with reduced exerted rim, two ribbon handles applied under the rim, with a yellow-ocher fabric, painted with abstract floral and vegetable motifs in green, red and brown under a transparent greenish glaze. Types of this jars are preserved in situ in the mosques of Xher-Mëhallë (XVI century) in the nearby Delvinë. The fine glazed ware dates starting from the second half of the XV century through the first half the XVII century. The types of wares found in Kamenica are typical for this region of the Mediterranean, since most part of their production is comes from the territory of Italy. The lithic assemblage of Qafë Katie represents a Palaeolithic site of at least two components: a) Middle Palaeolithic and b) Upper Palaeolithic. The Middle Palaeolithic consists mostly on discoidal products while the Levallois method is only very rarely used. Regarding the Upper Palaleolithic component, the lithics do not allow a clear definition of the different sub-periods. Generally, the lithics are heavily pseudo retouched and most probably re-deposited. Nevertheless further work at the site could potentially shed new light to these materials.

The urban planning of the medieval village of Kamenica is the main subject of this paper. It is an abandoned village situated on the south of Albania (district of Delvine), which conserves many of its original buildings in a good state. The surveys done in the last years permit to make some preliminary conclusions about its structure. In order to understand the guidelines of the urban planning, we have taken in exam some similar models, both in Albanian and Italian territory. Their study has been very useful to put Kamenica in rapport with the other settlements in a large context. The analysis passes through the concept of urban geography, which is very important for choosing the site location and the guarantee of the economic life of the village. In the paper are taken in exam the principal elements of the urban structure, such as the streets network and the open spaces. Keywords: medieval village, medieval urban planning, abandoned village, medieval house, tower house.

There were numerous Slavic settlements in South Albania (including the valley of Shushica River) at the end of the 1st millennium. In the second half of the 9th c. a significant part of this region was conquered by the 1st Bulgarian Kingdom, and after 870 there were established ecclesiastical dioceses which became part of the church organization of the Kingdom. Slavonic ecclesiastical schools were established in that region as well, after 886 in the context of the so-called “Slavonic project” of the Bulgarian prince, Boris. St. Clement took an active part in this project. It was South Albania where the first Slavonic bishopric in Southeast Europe was founded, in 893, when St. Clement was appointed bishop. His bishopric was organized according ethnic principle, so that St. Clement was called “the bishop of Slavonic people.” The center of Clement’s bishopric was in Velica, which is related to the modern settlement Velçë in the Shushica valley. There are ruins of a cross-in-square chur...

There were numerous Slavic settlements in South Albania (including the valley of Shushica River) at the end of the 1st millennium. In the second half of the 9th c. a significant part of this region was conquered by the 1st Bulgarian Kingdom, and after 870 there were established ecclesiastical dioceses which became part of the church organization of the Kingdom. Slavonic ecclesiastical schools were established in that region as well, after 886 in the context of the so-called “Slavonic project” of the Bulgarian prince, Boris. St. Clement took an active part in this project. It was South Albania where the first Slavonic bishopric in Southeast Europe was founded, in 893, when St. Clement was appointed bishop. His bishopric was organized according ethnic principle, so that St. Clement was called “the bishop of Slavonic people.” The center of Clement’s bishopric was in Velica, which is related to the modern settlement Velçë in the Shushica valley. There are ruins of a cross-in-square chur...

There were numerous Slavics elements in South Albania (including the valley of Shushica River) at the end of the 1st millennium. In the second half of the 9th c. a significant part of this region was conquered by the 1st Bulgarian Kingdom, and after 870 there were established ecclesiastical dioceses which became part of the church organization of the Kingdom. Slavonic ecclesiastical schools were established in that region as well, after 886 in the context of the so-called “Slavonic project” of the Bulgarian prince, Boris. St. Clement took an active part in this project. It was South Albania where the first Slavonic bishopric in Southeast Europe was founded, in 893, when St. Clement was appointed bishop. His bishopric was organized according ethnic principle, so that St. Clement was called “the bishop of Slavonic people.” The center of Clement’s bishopric was in Velica, which is related to the modern settlement Velçë in the Shushica valley. There are ruins of a cross-in-square church with a narthex in the Asomat region, which is located near Velica. The church was built at the end of the 9th‒beginning of the 10th cc. and dedicated to
the Archangel Michael. The plan of this church is identical with that of the socalled “pronaos” of the church built by St. Clement in his Ohrid monastery. In St. Clement’s bishopric Church Slavonic was used as a liturgical language. For that purpose, a set of Byzantine liturgical books was translated from Greek into Church Slavonic, and Clement took an active part in this process. Liturgical pecularities of these books partially observed in Greek manuscripts of South Italian provenance testify to the hypothesis that Greek sources of the earliest Church Slavonic translations belonged to liturgical tradition of Epirus, similar to those of South Italy. This also proves the location of St. Clement’s bishopric in the valley of the Shushica River.