Remains of Knez Mirko Radojević’s funerary shroud

SECTION: ARCHAEOLOGY›MIDDLE AGES

A surviving epitaph on a stećak tombstone in Kopošići near Ilijaš reveals that the Bosnian Knez Batić Mirković was buried there. Archaeological excavations conducted on the site in 2015 found a skeleton without a skull, covered with expensive and heavy brocade, beneath a tombstone, only a few metres from Knez Batić’s monument. DNA analysis and a comparison of remains of the deceased with a surviving thighbone of Knez Batić revealed that the two persons were related through the male line as father and son, and that the exhumed skeleton belonged to Knez Mirko Radojević who was well known from numerous sources dating from the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. The deceased was laid in a solid oak coffin, his whole body was covered by a cloak embroidered with fine threads of gilded silver. The fragments of the cloak were extremely well preserved, and represent the largest find of medieval textile in an archaeological context in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The fabric itself was originally purple and was embroidered with the figures of lions or griffins. It was probably imported, reflecting the high fashion of the late Middle Ages in Europe, which had spread throughout Bosnia’s royal and princely courts.

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