CEMETERY, GRAVES AND TWO CHURCHES IN LOBOR - PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

The paper discusses the graves around the pre-Romanesque basilica in Lobor, Our Lady of the Mountain. The main emphasis is on the graves in relation to the time when it was already demolished. After its demolition, the serial burial of the dead began in the ruins and their interior. According to the archaeological finds, the layer of graves above the ruins could be dated throughout the 11th century, and no later than the middle of the 13th century, when not only a certain prosperity is evident, but also the following of trends then present throughout the Pannonian Plain and surrounding areas, and a greater abundance of finds in the graves, which had been present in smaller numbers in the earlier period, when graves were almost devoid of finds. Thus, the discontinuity between the demolition of the pre-Romanesque church and the building of the late-Romanesque church extends from the first third of the 11th century to the middle of the 13th. Chronologically, this could be connected with events relating to the re-entry of the Holy Roman Empire during the reign of Otto III in the second half of the 10th century, or the time when the Hungarians first occupied these areas south of the River Drava, possibly during the reign of the Hungarian King Stephen I, or perhaps the time after the death of the Croatian King Zvonimir (after 1089), when northern Croatia was occupied by the Hungarians. At the latest, this happened at the time of the Mongol invasion in 1242, but such an occurrence would be possible only if certain types of objects were extended to the 13th century.