The ancient site, Stakina Cheshma in Valandovo is unique and recognizable for its impressive floor mosaics. This site was recorded in the seventies and eighties and it has been continuously excavated since 1987, under the management of Mila Shurbanovska.
This building’s working title is Roman domus and in the past 33 years eight rooms with floor mosaics with different construction techniques and one pool with a semicircular shape have been explored on this site.
So far there have been two hypotheses.
The first one is that one of the rooms is part of a second building, and the second one is that this part belongs to an already existing palace.
The hypotheses were based on the existence of a road that separated the architectural remains.
Special acknowledgment to the Municipality of Valandovo for the support and assistance in removing the road, which opened a new space for work and the opportunity to gain new knowledge.
This year’s excavations discovered part of a room with a mosaic made in opus tessellatum.
According to the treatment technique and the stylistic features of the mosaic, we’ve determined that the remains on both sides of the road represent one room, i.e. that it is a representative building with mosaic floors covering over 500 m².
The project manager is Prof. Dr. Antonio Jakimovski, co-manager is Radomir Ivanovic, curator at the Archaeological Museum, and the expert team consisted of Mila Shurbanoska, retired curator advisor from the Archaeological Museum, Penche Kralev, archaeologist from PI House of Culture “25 May”, Pero Sinadinovski, archaeologist, Igor Shirtovski, archaeologist and Dr. Hristijan Talevski from the PRI “Institute For Old Slavic Culture”.
Simultaneously with the project of the Archaeological Museum, a project for conservation of this rare cultural heritage is under way in cooperation with the NI Institute and Museum – Strumica, under the management of Vane P. Sekulov.
