Field research of the Institute

Archaeological Topography of the Rab Island

The goal of the project Archaeological Topography of the Rab Island, initiated in 2013 in collaboration with the Conservation Department in Rijeka, is to document the archaeological sites on the Rab island known from literature or discovered by field surveys, with the aim to create an archaeological map that would be used as a tool for future scholarly research, but would also serve the local community to better manage their heritage.

The first, pilot phase of the project focused on the territory of the Lopar municipality in the extreme north of the island, where the Institute of Archaeology had already acquired positive experience in collecting field data during the investigation of a Roman ceramic kiln in the Podšilo area in 2009. The material collected at that time served as the basis for a fieldwork campaign that included a survey of the sites known from literature and documented in the Archives of the Conservation Department, a detailed recording of the situation encountered at two sites, as well as a survey of the positions pointed out to us by local informants or those we had observed during the 2009 research.

The results of the first campaign of field surveys include the identification of 33 sites, 20 of which had not been documented before, as well as 15 positions with archaeological markers in the form of scattered or chance finds, or positions for which there are sufficiently secure indicators. The positions of all the registered and documented sites were recorded by a GPS device, and the data collected in this way was entered into the database within a specially designed GIS system.

The second campaign, carried out in 2014, encompassed the areas included in the town of Rab. The campaign yielded 5 newly-documented sites and 17 positions with archaeological indicators. Future campaigns of field surveys will include also the other areas of the island, as well as the urban core of the town of Rab.