Vučedol Culture Museum () is a museum of prehistoric culture in at

Vučedol Vučedol () in Croatia, is an archeological site, an elevated ground on the right bank of the River Danube, which also forms the border with Serbia. Vučedol became the eponym of the eneolithic Vučedol culture. It is estimated that the site had o ...

, near the city of

Vukovar Vukovar (; sr-Cyrl, Вуковар, , ) is a city in Croatia, in the eastern Regions of Croatia, regions of Syrmia and Slavonia. It contains Croatia's largest river port, located at the confluence of the Vuka (river), Vuka and the Danube. Vukova ...

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

History

The museum was formally established on the 30 June 2015 by a Croatian Government Decree and was first opened in 2015. In 2017, Vučedol Culture Museum was the most visited museum in

Slavonia Slavonia (; ) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria County, Istria, one of the four Regions of Croatia, historical regions of Croatia. Located in the Pannonian Plain and taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with f ...

region, and the 7th most visited museum in Croatia. In 2022 museum was the winner of the prestigious European "Destination of Sustainable Cultural Tourism" award

Vučedol archaeological site

The

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

is located on the right bank of the

Danube River The Danube ( ; see also other names) is the second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest south into the Black Sea. A large and historically important riv ...

, four kilometres downriver from the city of

, at the spot where an intermittent watercourse in a

loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...

Vukovar Plateau Vukovar Plateau (, sr-Cyrl-Latn, Вуковарски равњак, separator=" / ", Vukovarski ravnjak) is a low loess plateau in eastern Croatia in the region of Syrmia named after the town of Vukovar. The eponymous town of Vukovar originally de ...

has cut a 25 metre high narrow steep valley that runs to the Danube river. Both sides along this steep pass make up the archaeological site, on the left is the Karasović Vineyard, and on the right is a large complex which includes the Streim Vineyard and the Streim Cornfield. Artificially separated from the pass, a little plateau known as Gradac, which through archeological excavations was confirmed as being the

metallurgical Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

and cultural centre of the site. It gives its name to the

Vučedol culture The Vučedol culture (Croatian: ''Vučedolska kultura'') flourished between 3000 and 2200 BC (the Chalcolithic period of earliest copper-smithing and arsenical bronze-smithing), centered in Syrmia and eastern Slavonia on the right bank of the Dan ...

that existed in

Copper Age Europe The Chalcolithic (also Eneolithic, Copper Age) period of Prehistoric Europe lasted roughly from 5000 to 2000 BC, developing from the preceding Neolithic period and followed by the Bronze Age. It was a period of Megalithic culture, the appearan ...

. The first investigations of the site dates back to 1897. The location was first inhabited around 6,000 B.C. and was inhabited intensively through the whole of prehistory. During the period between 3,350 – 2,300 B.C. it was a significant centre of human settlement in Europe. This period coincides with the early settlements of

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

(Troy I and II) and many similarities can be found between the archaeological material from Troy and Vučedol. Archaeological excavations to date are able to precisely reconstruct the daily life and customs of four cultural phenomena which in that time swept through the sites of the Vučedol culture - Baden, Kostolac, Vučedol and Vinkovci. It was a turbulent time of the immigration of the first Indo-Europeans and their relationship with the natives, the blending of material cultures and religions. Each of the aforementioned settlements had its own characteristics, however the most detailed one able to be reconstructed is the Vučedol one, which also gave its name to this site.

References

Bibliography

* * The Vučedol archaeological site is located on the right bank of the Danube River. Both sides along the pass towards the Danube make up the archaeological site, on the left is the Karasović Vineyard. * Vučedol Culture Museum was established in 2013 as a national museum.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vucedol Culture Museum Museums in Croatia 2015 establishments in Croatia Museums established in 2015 Buildings and structures in Vukovar