4,000 year-old necropolis found in southern Serbia

VRANJE -- An early-Bronze-Age necropolis has been found in the vicinity of the southern Serbian city of Vranje.


A team of experts from the Archeological Institute of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) and the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade have discovered the necropolis.
It is located at the Manište dig in the village of Ranutovac, three kilometers north of Vranje, on the route of Corridor 10.

Aleksandar Bulatović, the coordinator of a project of archeological research and preservation on the Corridor 10 route, told Tanjug the necropolis contained remains of the deceased who were burned in funeral pyres.

"The necropolis dates back to the Early Bronze Age - based on our initial assessments between 2,000 and 1,800 BC, and it is significant because it is the only fully preserved necropolis from this period in the central Balkans," he explained.

“It is the most important discovery made to date on the Corridor X route,” he added.

"At the same site, we found multiple ceramic objects, which look quite unusual for this area, and several containers whose use is unknown," said Bulatović.

The archeological material is being processed at the National Museum in Vranje, where it will later be exhibited.

The Serbian section of Corridor 10, stretching from Grabovnica near Leskovac to Preševo on the Macedonian border, has 33 registered archeological sites, five of which are yet to be explored

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