Bijaći - Stombrate Archaeological Site, Trogir

In the area of the town of Trogir, in Split-Dalmatia County, lies the Bijaći - Stombrate archaeological site with the church of St Martha. Lovers of early Croatian history will find here a place connected with the first rulers, and besides the remains of antiquity visitors also see a younger church.

In the early Middle Ages this land was the estate of the Croatian dukes of the Trpimirović dynasty. On it stood the pre-Romanesque church of St Martha, a three-aisled building with a rectangular ground plan, built on the foundations of a late antique structure. It was oriented from east to west, had a square apse on the east side, and a bell tower in front of the west façade. The walls were made of dressed stone bonded with abundant mortar. A little further south, in 1908, a new single-nave church of St Martha was built, also rectangular, with a smaller apse.

The site is a protected cultural good and is entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-4566. It covers the period from the 6th to the 12th century.

Photo: Ante Perkovic, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: Wikidata (CC0).