EAA 2023: Abstract

The St. Peter and Paul Rotunda at Budeč, built in the late 9th or early 10th century, is the oldest fully preserved masonry construction in Bohemia (Czech Republic). Due to its high state of preservation and references to its erection in early medieval legends (in particular Crescente fide [bav 183 and cz 58], Kristian’s Legend [28–29], Gumpold’s Legend [148] and the Second Old Church Slavonic Life of Saint Wenceslas [89]), the church became a locus of historical memory. Its local significance made the church the focus of conservation efforts from the 19th century, as well as the subject of architectural, historical, and archaeological research. The findings allow the reconstruction of the historical framework and the macro-definition of the building materials used, which exemplify early masonry construction in the central European region. Recently, we began to investigate the mortars used. We have analysed their composition, technical quality of the materials used for in their production, and the possibilities of determining their chronology by radiocarbon dating.
The aim of this paper is to present the rotunda at Budeč as an example of early construction development in Bohemia and the approach to monumental conservation in the 19th and 20th centuries, summarise the results of past research and present the results of the latest mortar analyses.

Early Middle Ages, Church Archaeology, Construction History, Mortar Analyses, Building Materials

Oral presentation

  Abstract (PDF)

Pavla Tomanova¹

Jan Valek²
Kristýna Kotková²
Petr Kozlovcev²