STOMBRATE, THE CHURCH OF ST. MARTA IN BIJAĆI
Today the two hills in western-northern part of Kaštela’s field are named Bijaći. The western one is higher and it is Veli Bijać and the eastern is Mali Bijać and it softly transfers into the valley. On the top of Veli Bijać, a church of St. Nofro (Onofrio) stands with the inscription from 1475. In the eastern and western side of the hill one can find the most fertile parts of Kaštela’s field and also the field full of archeological findings. On the ruins of one Roman rustic villa the Croats in the 9th century construct three-nave basilica with rectangular apse dedicated to St. Marta, and even today this area is known as Stombrate. In general it is believed that this is the area where the people’s dynasty of Trpimirovići held their estate and their seat, near the Klis fort. The church is mentioned in the transcripts of rulers’ documents which date it to the mid and second half of 9th century. Transcripts are from the 16th century and they are kept in the parish office in Kaštel Sućurac.
Archeological research of this site was conducted by “Bihać” Association and don Frane Buluć from 1902 to 1905. Those researches discovered the remains of three-nave mediaeval church with rectangular apse, and also the stone furniture of old-Croatian church construction works, decorated by the Croatian wattle, which mostly filled the church’s interior. Museum of Croatian Archeological Monuments researched it from 1967 to 1979 and the conservation of the site in complete was conducted in 1970. The most valuable finding of those researches is the discovery of the old Croatian church with semicircular apse and the baptistery. Cemetery around the church from two different periods was also found. 15 graves belong to late-Romanesque period and 13 to medieval period with typical jewelry for the 9th – 12th centuries. In the vicinity of the church of St. Marta, around 150 m on the north, in the narrow area of Stombrate, the Regional Museum of Kaštela in cooperation with the Museum of Croatian Archeological Monuments in Split, in 1992 and 1993, conducted a research of smaller old-Croatian cemetery with 54 graves. This cemetery belongs to the type of early-medieval cemeteries made in lines that were developed without a sacral object in it. The graves are made of limestone, either as irregular plates planted on knives or ashlars and connected with clay. It probably did not last very long – the jewelry belongs in complete to only one phase.
