On August 12, underwater archeological excavations began at the site Vrbnik, which is located on the western shoreline of Lake Ohrid at the Struga exit, near the village of Kalishta.
The first information about the site was obtained in the 80s of the last century, and systematic underwater archeological excavations have been conducted continuously since 1998.
So far, the excavations have uncovered an extremely rich movable archaeological material consisting of ceramic fragments, whole vessels, ceramic spools, biconical spindle whorlс, circular weights, various bronze objects: bracelets with overlaid ends, saltaleons, double pins, iron blades, fishhooks etc. The objects were discovered in a layer of mud about 20 cm thick and spread over the entire investigated area. Although most of the pottery is fragmented, it’s a matter of forms that have been used for a long time, and according to the archaeological findings the period of existence of this settlement is 7th and 6th century BC.
This year’s research is aimed at taking samples from the postholes in the previously researched and documented parts of the settlement, for a duration of 20 days, during the period from August to September 2021.
So far, over 500 postholes have been discovered and an area of about 500 m2 has been documented, which is on an average of about 1/10 of the entire settlement. In general, we can sense the appearance of several houses.
Alongside with the underwater research, preparations are being made for dendrochronological and carbon analyzes, in the premises of the Museum of Natural History Nikola Nezlobinski – Struga.
The project holder is the NI Archaeological Museum of Republic of North Macedonia, in cooperation with the Museum of Natural History Nikola Nezlobinski – Struga and the University of Bern, Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Switzerland where the dendrochronological analyzes will be performed.
Participants in the project are Aleksandra Papazovska – project manager, Valentina Todoroska – co-manager of the project, Bojan Taneski – underwater archaeologist, Cvetlana Vasilevska – archaeologist, Andrej Machkovski – doctoral student in dendrochronology and divers from the diver clubs “Diver” and “Scout” from Struga.
