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Belovode

Plan of earlier excavation trenches at Belovode (the entire site area marked as green) ©Jugoslav Pendić

The site of Belovode lies on a windy plateau with the eponymous spring running through the settlement, located near the village of Veliko Laole, c. 140 km southeast of Belgrade.

Belovode has been excavated since 1993 by the National Museum of Belgrade and the Museum in Požarevac (Šljivar & Jacanović 1997; Šljivar & Jacanović 1996a; Šljivar & Jacanović 1996b; Jacanović & Šljivar 2003; Šljivar et al. 2006). Within an estimated 100 hectares covered by up to 3m of cultural layers, four building horizons were recognized (Belovode A-D), correlating with the entire Vinča culture sequence (Jovanović 1994; Šljivar 1993-2009; Šljivar & Jacanović 1996b).

The first field season of the AHRC project at Belovode ran for a month from early July to early August 2012.

Copper minerals and beads from Belovode ©Duško Šljivar

We opened a 5m x 5m trench (Trench 18) adjacent to an earlier trench (Trench 17) which had yielded metallurgical remains. The excavations revealed a substantial structure, several associated pits, clay altar and figurine fragments, a substantial quantity of pottery and plenty of copper ore fragments. 

In November 2012, the geophysical survey team led by Dr Knut Rassmann and Patrick Merkl of the Roman-Germanic Commission worked on the sites of Belovode and Pločnik. The team was ably assisted by Jugoslav Pendic and Aleksandar Jablanovic.