Groby z płytami na cmentarzysku przy kościele pod wezwaniem św. Mikołaja w Wiślicy. Aspekt archeologiczny i społeczny
Graves with plates in the St. Nicholas’ church cemetery in Wiślica. Archaeological and social aspect

Summary/Abstract: Santa Nicholas church in Wiślica has been used as parish church, from the end of 11th or from the beginning of 12th to m id 13th century. It was i n t he center of s uburbium (ryc. 2). It consisted of church, burial chapel and cemetery. In the chapel and the cemetery there were uncovered 91 graves, including 13 with tombstones. Tombstones were made of gypsum and limestone (ryc. 1). Their fronts were smooth and without decoration. They were deposited directly on a top of pit graves an average of 120 cm above the burials. They were determined the level of utility of cemetery and chapel. Anthropological analyses proved that in graves with tombstones were buried people in infans II – maturus ages. A further aspect of the social interpretation of the dead buried in this kind of graves is difficult. We can only hypothesize that they had to characterize something „special” in the community in Wiślica. This „uniqueness” we can consider in a multifaceted sense: „alien” and „different”, but also in a material, social, cultural and intellectual sense. These attributes should be associated with „selected” dweller of Wiślica, belonging to the environment of Sandomierz’s court princes, residing in the palace at Regia (ryc. 2). Among the graves with thombstones attention draws to a sarcophagus (39/59, ryc. 4). We can identify it with the burial of the founder of the church or priest performing a liturgy, but also with the person derived from the secular or ecclesiastical hierarchy. The location of this grave outside the temple is unusual. In funeral tradition sarcophags from 11th-13th century were deposited in center of temples. On the other hand, the burials with thombstones, as numerous as in Wiślica, are a rare phenomenon in the necropolises of churches of the early phase of the Christianization of the Polish lands. The cemetery in Wiślica is unique in this respect.

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