Bargala — an ancient city in Macedonia, located near Gorni Kozjak along the Kozjacka River, 12 kilometers northeast of Shtip.

Location and research

The ancient city of Bargala is located 12 kilometers northeast of Shtip, near the Kozjacka River at the foot of Plachkovica mountain. The site, which is reached by an asphalt road, can also be visited in the evening, as it is fully illuminated. The name Bargala is of Thracian origin, and its etymological origin is linked to the river Bregalnica. Research in this deposit began in 1942 and is associated with the name of Ivan Venedikov, who was the first to locate its exact location.

In 1966 the research was renewed under the direction of Blaga Alexova. Through the seventies of the 20th century, a Yugoslav-American team worked on the site and then the bishop’s basilica was discovered. Later, additional excavations of Bargala were carried out under the direction of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and the National Museum from Shtip. So far, only one tenth of the entire deposit has been explored, as it covers an area of ​​about five hectares.

History of the city

The ancient city of Bargala is mentioned in an inscription from the year 371, found during the Second World War, which is a memorial plaque for the erection of the city gate by Antonius Alypius, governor of the province. The plate was found in the village of Hanche, on the left side of the river Bregalnica, in the atar of the village of Karbintsi. This archaeological monument provides information about where the city was located, as well as about the problems on the border of Macedonia with Thrace. The city is also mentioned in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon of 415.

Towards the end of the IV century, the city served as a late Roman military camp ( castrum ), which was built as a fortress on the border belt between the provinces of Second Macedonia and Mediterranean Dacia. Later, the city was destroyed, and the inhabitants built a new city by the Kozjacka River near Gorni Kozjak. After losing its strategic importance, Bargala grew into a civil-episcopal city. In the 5th and 6th centuries, and especially in the time of Justinian I ( 527 – 565 ), the city reached its peak, but towards the end of the 6th century, on several occasions, it suffered from the Avar-Slavic campaigns that shook the Balkans. The city was not completely abandoned, but it survived as a non-urbanized settlement. Furthermore, in the Middle Ages, a new settlement was formed, the hallmark of which is the church “Saint George”, built at the end of the second half of the 9th century. Around the church “St. Gjorgi” is a discovered necropolis which, according to the findings, existed starting from the 7th century.

Objects

The city has an irregular rectangular wall, with an area of ​​280×185/150 meters (4.7 hectares ) and oriented northwest-southeast. The large and solid stone walls, with a width of 2.30 meters, were reinforced with 20 square towers, and inside there were rooms where the soldiers and horses were housed. The main double entrance was located almost in the middle of the western rampart.

In the northwestern corner of the fort, the city’s episcopate, episcopal basilica and its courtyard space, in which there is a baptistery with mosaic surfaces, and parts of a mosaic are also preserved in the area of ​​the bath. Then a water cistern was discovered, and two baths – a late antique large and small bath. The great bath is located in the space between the courtyard of the episcopal basilica and the northwestern city rampart. It is a well-preserved complex building with functionally interconnected individual rooms. In addition, parts of commercial and residential buildings were also discovered.

The episcopal basilica was discovered in the northwestern part of the city. It was built at the end of the 4th century, and was restored, i.e. walled and remodeled, in the 5th-6th centuries. It represents a building built according to the standard type of early Christian buildings from the Balkan Peninsula and the Mediterranean. Observed from an architectural point of view, it is a three-aisled basilica with a semicircular apse inside and outside and with an inner narthex and an exonarthex. From the interior of the basilica, the floors covered with stone slabs are particularly striking, except for the northern floor, which was covered with polychrome mosaic. The most beautiful is the floor of the presbytery, which was covered with white and gray tiles in opus sectile. The object abounds with rich architectural-decorative plastic, among which the marble capitals decorated with lion heads and vine leaves, as well as several parapet plates, stand out. On one of the capitals of the entrance tribelon in the exonarthex was found the inscription: “Christ, help your slave, the bishop Hermia”. The mentioned bishop and bishops Philip and Eustathius from the two episcopal basilicas in Stobi are marked as the founders of the basilicas.

Near the city ramparts of Bargala, west of them, in 1984 an early Christian building from the end of the IV century was discovered. It is an extra muros basilica, three-aisled, with a projecting apse, with a narthex and exonarthex and with a floor covered with stone slabs that were luxuriously ornamented. Next to the southern rampart and the southeastern tower, outside the boundaries of this site, there is the medieval church “St. Geor