Unde venis? Unravelling the enigma of stećci tombstones is a multidisciplinary research programme with inter-disciplinary objectives, running from 2024-2029, funded by the European Research Council (within the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme (2022-2030) under grant agreement n° 101089123). It was preceded by a series of pilot studies supported by the European Research Council's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Programme and University of Reading, and Slovenian Research Agency's (ARIS) Aleš Debeljak Program, and internal institutional funds from University of Reading, UK; Stanford University, USA.
The STONE multi-scalar and multi-proxy archaeological project adopts an innovative and transdisciplinary approach to study a unique medieval funerary phenomenon, with the principal goal of understanding the social life of the societies that left us remarkable monuments. Focusing on medieval Herzegovina, the cradle of the stećci phenomenon, the research into the social lifeways of this heritage will redefine the scholarship of the medieval Western Balkans funerary culture and situate it within a European context, significantly raising its visibility within international scholarship and the public domain. Aside from increasing our understanding of stećci, STONE will establish a discipline of medieval epigraphy in the Western Balkans; introduce epiconography, a conceptually innovative approach to study inscriptions and decorations on stećci; use a prehistoric landscape approach to investigate medieval landscape and initiate a paradigmatic shift away from the current culture-historical approach to the study of past societies. The proposed research will serve as a propulsive force within the vastly understudied Western Balkans medieval archaeology, enabling it to make a decades-long leap to align with current medieval European funerary and societal research trends.
Stećci embody a material agency in constructing and reshaping medieval social worlds. Where from, why and when exactly did they emerge? What were the determining factors governing the form of a tombstone, types of burial places or decorations? How did internal and external medieval interactions mould the stećci phenomenon? Can one see large-scale changes in European medieval societies expressed in this multidimensional material culture?
The core of STONE consists of five thematic objectives, which examine key questions relating to undiscovered lived space, the reuse of prehistoric burial spaces and persistence of a specific type of ancient economy, artistic craftmanship with cultural nuances of stećci communiqué, and social memories and identities embedded within these tombstones. Corresponding work packages will address these objectives. By achieving these objectives, STONE will enhance medieval archaeology and draw the attention of medievalists worldwide to this unique source of data relating to plural societies in an understudied frontier of medieval Europe.
