The Lapidarium
The stone monuments from Nin and its immediate surroundings are on display in the lapidarium. The collection consists of stone monuments from the Roman, Medieval, and early Modern periods. These monuments were mostly gathered at the beginning of the 20th century, when they were placed in the Antiquity Collection in and around the Church of the Holy Cross. When the collection was moved to its new location, some of the monuments were utilized for the permanent exhibition of material from the Roman and Early Croatian periods, while the others were placed in the courtyard. The collection of stone monuments has increased considerably in the past ten years as a result of the numerous archaeological excavations and conservation projects in Nin and the vicinity.
Archaeological Museum in Zadar
Welcome to the new web pages of the Archaeological Museum in Zadar. We hope you will enjoy your virtual stroll through our museum. To navigate through the site, please select from the symbols on the left, and if you have any questions about the museum or our work, please feel free to contact us using the provided form or call us on the listed phone numbers.
The museum was founded in 1832 making it the second oldest museum in Croatia, and one of the oldest in this part of Europe. It displays prehistoric archaeological material from the Old and New Stone Ages (Paleolithic and Neolithic), the Metal Ages (Bronze and Iron Ages), the Roman and Byzantine Periods, as well as archaeological remains from the 7th to the 15th centuries, most of which is tied to the material and spiritual heritage of the Croats.
The ground floor exhibit displays archaeological remains from the period from the 7th to the 12th centuries, most related to the material and spiritual culture of the Croats. The first floor exhibits numerous objects illustrating life in northern Dalmatia in the time of the Romans (temporarily closed to prepare a new permanent exhibit). The second floor houses prehistoric archaeological material from the Stone and Metal Ages (from ca. 10,000 BC to the arrival of the Romans).
Ploča oltarne pregrade iz Sv. Nedjeljice u Zadru (detalj) s prizorima Herodov pokolj nevine djece, bijeg u Egipat i Sv. Ivan Krstitelj, kraj XI st., Arheoloki muzej, Zadar. Tradicionalni antički tip arkadnog sarkofaga prerašen je u plitki reljef linearne stilizacije predromanike, tako da je nekadanja arhitektonska pozadina postala ornamentalni okvir. As a state museum, it is responsible for the area of Zadar County, along with the islands of Rab and Pag. Several departments exist within the museum: the Prehistoric Department, Roman Department, Medieval Department, Underwater Archaeology Department, Education Department, Conservation-Restoration Department, Library Department, as well as the Museum of Nin Antiquities. The Archaeological Museum in Zadar is home to more than 100,000 different archaeological artifacts and monuments from all cultural and historical periods from the Paleolithic to the end of the 15th century.
Museum activities include carrying out systematic, rescue, and test archaeological excavations, protecting, analyzing, and presenting archaeological material, organizing temporary exhibitions, and putting guest exhibitions on display. The Archaeological Museum in Zadar publishes an annual journal, "Diadora", with 22 volumes to date containing over 5000 pages of scientific works by Croatian and foreign archaeologists. The Archaeological Museum in Zadar is particularly proud of its manufacture of archaeological copies and reproductions in pottery, plaster, glass, stone, and metal.
The History of the Archaeological Museum in Zadar
Modern museum studies in Zadar arose as a result of centuries of collecting antiquities, and the consequent necessity of storing and arranging them. Permanent interest in monuments and collecting appeared at the end of the 14th century and beginning of the 15th century (the period of the Renaissance and Humanism), when the first known antiquarians were active in Zadar, Juraj Benja and the abbot of the Monastery of St. Chrysogon, Petar Krava. Their work was continued by the archbishop of Zadar, Maffeo Valaresso, the bishop of Nin, Juraj Divnic, and the group gathered around them, including Petar Caecus, P. Fosco, Cyriacus Picenicollis from Ancona, and others.
The collection of the physician Ante Danieli Tommasoni was created in the 18th century in Zadar, and included the largest and most beautiful collection of classical sculpture in Dalmatia. The main feature of the collection was eight statues of Roman emperors, discovered in 1768 in the garden of Josip Šurovic in Nin during excavations that were financed by Danieli, who then also purchased the finds. According to certain cursory catalogues, the first printed in 1818, the collection contained over 300 works of sculpture, mostly of stone, numerous Roman inscriptions, pottery and glass vessels, a numismatic collection (over 6000 coins), a painting collection, and a large library. The collection was eventually inherited by the Pellegrini-Danieli family. In 1859, the Pellegrinis sold the collection for 4200 fiorins to the nobleman Pietro Cernazai of Udine, and it was later donated to the Udine Seminary, which sold it at auctions held in 1900 and 1901. The Archaeological Institute of Vienna purchased 20 some sculptural works for the Archaeological Museum in Zadar, while the remainder was scattered throughout museums in Venice, Aquileia, Milan, Copenhagen, and elsewhere.
The Archaeological Museum was not founded as a separate specialized entity nor as an institution merely for the gathering of archaeological artifacts, but rather as a component of a more general museum that was given the tasks of gathering and preserving all monuments, traces, remains, and aspects of life, culture, nature, technology, industry, and so forth, from the earliest times to the modern age, all under the common name of the National or Regional Museum. It was founded on the 30th of November 1832, when the Austrian governor of Dalmatia, General Vetter Vjenceslav von Lilienberg decreed that material from all of Dalmatia be gathered in Zadar, as the capital of the province. He himself donated the first objects for the museum, and otherwise aided and encouraged by all possible means advances in culture, education, science, and the economy of the province. The material for the museum was at first stored in one room of the elementary school that existed at the site of the Church of St. Thomas, opposite the Church of St. Chrysogon, and later in the secondary school that was then located in the former monastery of St. Chrysogon in Zadar.
A suitable chance to separate the archaeological collection occurred in 1877, when the Church of St. Donatus stopped being used as a warehouse and became available. With the help of the Central Committee for the Preservation of Monuments, Ivan Smirich, previously a professor of drawing and painting, and from then on the chief conservator for the city of Zadar, began cleaning, restoring, and arranging St. Donatus with the aim of accommodating the Archaeological Museum in it. Smirich immediately began to place the archaeological and cultural-historical material in St. Donatus.
The museum even then already possessed a large quantity of archaeological and cultural-historical material, which further increased greatly, particularly from 1892 onwards, due to a series of major excavations at Nin, Asseria, Zadar, and other sites, as well as chance finds, and the donated collections of the Borelli family, the Medovic family from Nin, and others. The museum displayed archaeological and historical artifacts from prehistory to the modern period in St. Donatus. The stone material was displayed on the ground floor and the first floor, as well as immured in the walls, while other artifacts were exhibited in part of the matroneum of the church.
The museum experienced great changes between the two world wars, sharing the fate of the city itself. With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Dalmatia was reunited with Croatia, and became a part of the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (from 1929 the first Yugoslavia), while Zadar was annexed to Italy as an enclave according to the Treaty of Rapallo from 1920. Throughout the entire period of Italian rule, the activities of the museum were limited to the area of the city, while the rest of northern Dalmatia came under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Museum in Split and the Museum of Croatian Antiquities in Knin.
In the period from 1929 to 1931, the buildings that surrounded St. Donatus were removed, and the eastern part of the paving of the Roman forum was discovered beneath them, as well as the foundations of the church. Part of the lapidarium was displayed on the uncovered paving of the forum. The permanent exhibit was designed, partly with different material. In 1928, four large statues of Roman emperors from Nin were returned from Venice and were displayed in front of St. Donatus. They had earlier been a part of the Pellegrini-Danieli Collection from Zadar, and later were taken to Udine, and in 1901 to Venice.
When they withdrew from Zadar in 1943, the Italians took with them the most valuable material, particularly all smaller and lighter objects. They also carried off individual inventory books. On top of that, in the bombings of the city in 1943 and 1944, the administrative building of the museum at Green Square was set on fire, containing the offices, the storerooms for material, the library, and all other departments of the museum. Only the Church of St. Donatus and the collection displayed in it were spared in the bombing. In such conditions it was necessary to reorganize all museum related and scientific activities, to reestablish connections with the outlying areas, to gather the necessary professional and other staff, to acquire the proper facilities, and to start from the beginning in establishing a library, workshops, and all other necessary services.
The museum was moved in 1954 to the building of the former College of St. Demetrius, later the Faculty of Arts, where it occupied the basement, ground floor, and first floor. The expansion of the Faculty of Arts, today the University of Zadar, increasingly indicated that the museum needed to move into new premises. The chance was seized during the renovation of the Nunnery and Church of St. Mary, and it was agreed that the new building for the museum should be placed in the framework of this complex, which was actualized during 1971 and 1972. According to what were then the most modern methods, permanent exhibits were put on display in this building in 1974, with the medieval collection on the ground floor and the Roman collection on the first floor, and the permanent exhibit from the prehistoric period on the second floor in 1975. The conceptual and artistic design was composed by the academy-trained painter Mladen Pejakovic, while the museum elements were conceived and designed by J. Beloevic (medieval), . Batovic (prehistoric), and J. Medini and B. Ilakovac (Roman).
Today the Archaeological Museum in Zadar also has two separate structures in addition to its main building: the complex of the former monastery of St. Nicholas with the preparation and conservation laboratories, the photographic laboratory, the drawing office, the library, the underwater archaeology department, and the education department, and the Museum of Nin Antiquities, a regional archaeological collection with a permanent exhibit designed at the end of the 1990s.
1.
statue of the goddess Juno, originally from the Pellegrini-Danieli Collection of Zadar, on display in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.
2.The Lapidarium of the museum in the ground floor of St. Donatus at the beginning of the 20th century.
The beginnings of the Department of Underwater Archaeology extend back to 1979, when in the course of preparations for forming a Center for Underwater Archaeology based at the Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Smiljan Gluscevic was employed as the first official hydro-archaeologist in the Republic of Croatia. A chemical engineer already worked in the future Center and a restorer had even then already completed a six month course in stone conservation in the UNESCO program in Rome.
This had all been started up as early as 1973, when two Early Croatian boats were found at the entrance to the lagoon at Nin, along with the previously discovered remains of a Liburnian (prehistoric) boat at Zaton near Nin. This caused the City of Zadar, which partly financed the three employees and some of the material costs (the rest was funded by the Republic of Croatia), to hand over the ruinous complex of the former monastery of St. Nicholas to the Archaeological Museum in Zadar for thic center. Pools were constructed and outfitted with heaters and mixing systems, and the conservation began in these tanks of "wet wood", as the first such experiment in southeastern Europe. Even elsewhere in the world such methods were rarely utilized at that time, and the founder of the Conservation Workshop, Boidar Vilhar, had learned of them during a six-month course of study in Sweden and briefly in Denmark.
Although enviable results were achieved throughout the years, because of the permanently unsettled problems of financing first the restorer left, and after fourteen years of exceptional success, so did the chemical engineer, while the underwater archaeologist found his place among the employees of the Archaeological Museum in Zadar.
After the Republic of Croatia achived its independence, the Archaeological Museum Zadar became a state institution in 1995. The Department of Underwater Archaeology was formed then as the first and to date only such department among the cultural institutions along the entire Croatian Adriatic coast.
With the discovery of the bronze statue of the Apoxyomenos in the waters by the island of Losinj in 1998, after so many years the old concept of a Center for Underwater Archaeology was realized, further encompassing a workshop conserving underwater finds. This was led by the Archaeological Museum up to 2005, and after this by the Croatian Restoration Institute from Zagreb, within which the Center was finally set up.
The Archaeological Museum in Zadar, more specifically its Department of Underwater Archaeology, took responsibility for excavating the site of discovery of the bronze statue of the Apoxyomenos, which has remained the largest and most complicated underwater archaeological research project to date in terms of the number of participants and techniques involved.
The Department has also undertaken, along with the aid of outside consultants, an entire series of both minor and major underwater excavations in the Adriatic, but also in rivers. The multiyear systematic excavations in the Cetina River near Trilj should be mentioned, as well as those in the Norin River (Roman Naro flumen), which runs through amcient Narona.
Along with many underwater surveys undertaken in the Zadar area, the Department has also engaged in such searches in the Neretva Channel and Malo more region in southern Dalmatia.
Investigations have also been performed in the northern Adriatic, in Istria, at Savudrija, for example, where the best preserved Roman wharf and breakwater on the eastern coast of the Adriatic were found, at Kator near Umag, where the harbour of Roman Sepomaia was investigated in a two year campaign, and at Novigrad, where sections of the Roman harbour were found.
The Department has been carrying out two major research projects in the past few years in the Zadar region.
At Grebeni by the island of Silba, a Roman shipwreck from the middle of the 1st century AD is being excavated (from 2000 to the present). So far fifty-some ribs have been discovered, part of the exterior and interior planking, the probable base of the mast, a lead sounding implement, and remains of the ship's pumps. The cargo primarily consisted of amphorae of type Dressel 2-4, along with one example each of a Rhodian amphora and a Kingsholm 117 amphora. The cargo of stone is a specific feature of this shipwreck, along with two large bronze oval vessels of unknown purpose. For the first time, 3D analysis of the site has been carried out in the Adriatic.
1.Aerial view of the site of Greben by the island of Silba.
2.Part of the ribs of the Roman ship
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