|Case Study||Beyond East and West: Sacred Landscapes Duklja and Raška|
The fragmentarily preserved part of the architectural sculptural decoration with the representation of a bird cannot be determined with certainty where it was located within the Church of St. Stephen in the Banjska Monastery. The shape of the marble fragment suggests the possibility that it is part of an archivolt. Like the rest of the decoration, it is dated around 1315.
Today it is kept in the National Museum in Belgrade, no. 26_2180.
|Banjska Monastery, Church of St. Stephen||Place||01.01.1313||31.12.1315||Banjska Monastery is situated by the Banjska river, near Zvečan in the North of Kosovo. It was built by King Milutin in 1313 to 1315, modelled on Studenica Monastery. Its a single nave edifice with a dome and tripartite altar space. To the North and South of the central part of the Church are choirs with paracclesions next to each. Narthex has two bell-towers on its Western end. The Church is rich with Romanesque sculptural decoration (it was probably made by the same artisans who worked in the Chilandar Monastery).The most prominent sculptural decoration is the statue of the Virgin with Christ as a child (kept in the nearby Monastery of Sokolica). Some frescoes have remained, mostly under the dome.|