Fortified settlement Veletin

Remnants of the fortified settlement Veletin are located on a hill of the same name (map marking 969) near the small town Janjevo, in the vicinity of the Monastery Gračanica in Kosovo, in a region rich in metal ore (pic. 1-3). Veletin is mentioned for the first time as a landmark in King Milutin’s charter for the Monastery Gračanica issued in 1321. Namely, the boundary of villages donated to the monastery ran "from Oštri vrh on Veletjen between Sušica and between Gušterica". Villages of Sušica and Gušterica still exist under the same names. The mentioned Veletin refers to the hill with a fortified settlement or fortress at the top. In the past the hill and the fortress were for a long time a characteristic part of the historical landscape. Thanks to its favourable geostrategic position, vicinity of important roads and above all to the nearness of rich silver mines, the hill of Veletin was settled and fortified in pre-historic time, then in antiquity and in the middle ages. It is supposed that the Roman town Ulpiana (Justiniana Secunda), near the Monastery Gračanica, developed because of the vicinity of silver mines and that as a municipium became a center of administration of Janjevo - Novo Brdo metals in the II c. Mining reached its peak in this area only in the first half of the XV c., during the reign of Serbian despots. When this part of Serbia fell under Turkish rule in 1455, mining began to decline. In 1488, during the reign of Sultan Bajazet II, special regulations were made for the organization of work in Janjevo silver mines, which testify about their importance. It is hard to form an opinion about the appearance of Veletin at the time the Gračanica Charter was issued. Mining was growing at that time and it is possible that there was a fortress with a small crew to protect Janjevo and other nearby mining settlements. Veletin is explicitly mentioned as a fortress only in three cartographic sources of a later date. The first was the Atlas by V. M. Coronelli, published in 1689 in Venice (pic. 4). In the part of the map in the center of which is Kosovo Field (Campo Cassovo), Veletin is marked near Janjevo (Iagneuo) as a ruin: "Valetino rouin." (ato), as evidence of its earlier importance. The second mention of Veletin is made in the Map of the central course of the Danube etc., by Johann Baptist Homan, prepared in Nuremberg between 1707 and 1724. Veletin appears for the third time in the New map of Dalmatia, Croatia etc., published by Mathias Seuter in Augsburg before 1758. From the time Veletin was destroyed it was never renovated as far as we know and time took its toll. The walls of the fortress and other buildings were used by local inhabitants as a source of building materials until they completely disappeared, what apparently happened in the 70’s of the XX c. Remains of the walls whose shape can be discerned under the soil show that the foundation of the fortress was adjusted to the configuration of the ground. That is to say, the hill of Veletin ends in sheer rock on northern and north-eastern sides and is completely inaccessible (pic. 5) while on other sides there are moderately steep terraced slopes (pic. 6-9) on which rampart walls were built following topographic relief (plans 10 and 11). Two plans of the fortress Veletin were published until now (pic. 10 11). The third plan, the most accurate, was not published. It shows that the for­tress had the form of an irregular polygon, and that it was defended by three perimeters of walls forming the Upper, the Middle, and the Lower town (pic. 12). In the south-eastern part of the Lower town are remnants of a rectangular and of a round building. Archeological probes on Veletin were performed by Edi Shukriu in 1987 and 1988. Archeological material shows that the oldest settlement was formed in Neolithic period, belonging to the Bubanj-Hum culture. The younger settlement is from the Iron Age and is connected to the Suva Reka group. Finds of fragments of Attica ceramics of black-figure style points to connections with Greece in the VI c. (pic. 13/1,2), while curved fibula with charniere shows that the inhabitants of Veletin in V-IV c. possessed jewelry of high quality and aesthetically embellished (pic. 13/3,4). There are yet no material remains from the Hellenistic period. Rampart walls were built in the late classical period and numerous finds of tiles and ceramics could be dated to the same period (pic. 13/5-7). Also were found fragments of medieval ceramic vessels (pic. 13/8), two iron arrows (pic. 13/9,10), and an earring of bjelobrdo type dating from X-XII c. (pic. 13/11 and pic. 14). Destruction of remains of Veletin is continuing to this day. In more recent times part of the eastern rampart (?) wall (pic. 15) was damaged, while in the vicinity part of a threshold of the town gate or of some other larger building was discovered (pic. 16)