Projects / Programmes
Archaeological sources for the history of Pusti grad above Lipnica (the castle Waldenberg)
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.02.00 |
Humanities |
Archaeology |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H340 |
Humanities |
Archaeology |
archaeology of later periods, material culture, middle ages, Pusti grad above Lipnica, Waldenberg
Researchers (2)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
The project will comprise the documentation, evaluation and publication of archaeological data and small finds from Pusti grad above Lipnica, the site of the medieval castle Waldenberg.
The castle was built presumably in the 12th century and was abbandoned by the 17th century at the latest. To date, it hasn't been investigated archaeologically, with the exception of a small excavation which was carried out in 1993 by Zavod za varstvo naravne in kulturne dediščine Kranj (the Kranj Institute for protection of cultural and natural herritage) in the area next to the main building. The records and the finds are kept in Gorenjski muzej Kranj (Museum of Gorenjska, Kranj); the excavation has not yet been published.
Also, Gorenjski muzej Kranj and Narodni muzej Slovenije (Slovenian National Museum) keep a great number of small objects from this site which have been excavated unprofessionally by private collectors. Some finds are still in private ownership.
In the framework of this project, a catalogue of finds from the Gorenjski and National museums will be prepared; if possible, the finds from private collections shall also be included. Most of the finds have already been conservated and drawn, but the graphical documentation will have to be completed (corrections to the drawings, ink-drawing, photographs) and unified. The proper catalogical descriptions shall be prepared and the finds shall be evaluated (functional and chronological determination, determination of provenance of the individual finds). On the basis of this evaluation and the comparison with finds from other coeval sites in Slovenia and the neighbouring countries, we will attempt to place the archaeological finds from Pusti grad into a broader socio-economic framework.
We will attempt to find at least a partial answer to the question of the time of abbandonement of the castle Waldenberg and to throw more light on the assumption the already in the 15th centura the castle no longer served as the residential centre of the feudal estate (according to some historians, the count Fridrich III of Ortenburg and his heirs, the counts of Cilli, used an urban castle in the near-by market-town Radovljica when they visited their Radovljica feudal estate). From what we can tell about the archaeological finds from Pusti grad at this moment, we can suppose that in the first half of the 15th century, the castle Waldenberg was still very much a high-status residential building.
The results of the project will be published in a monograph.
