Archaeological Site of the Church of St Anthony, Tučepi

An archaeological site with the remains of the Church of St Anthony and a defensive wall is located in Tučepi, in Split-Dalmatia County, south-east of the hamlet of Srida Sela in Gornji Tučepi. The site is enclosed by a stone wall, and is of interest to those who want to understand how the Makarska Littoral and its inhabitants defended themselves in turbulent centuries.

At this spot stood the old parish church with a group of graves around it, which are now preserved only in the archaeological layer. It was a dilapidated Baroque single-nave building with a square apse, and it burned down in 1891. A church probably stood on the same spot even before the Turkish period. The ground plan can still be read on a cadastral tracing. The new parish Church of St Anthony, in a neo-style, was built from 1898 to 1901 closer to the settlement. A section of the stone wall with loopholes, built of roughly dressed stone in mortar, has been preserved on the south-western and south-eastern sides. It speaks of a refuge, a fortified shelter around the church, which is a feature of the Makarska Littoral.

The site is a protected cultural property and is entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-7134.

Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0 hr, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: DGU (centre of the settlement).