Part of an Altar Screen (first half of the 9th century)

Remains of the stone furnishings of early mediaeval churches with symbolic ornamentation (8th and 9th century) are the heritage of late antique Christian Mediterranean art. Its inventory spread to the European area as a general international phenomenon. The only such collection in Slovenia consists of local material. The stone inventory often replaces the rare written sources. These "documents" point to a time of religious debates on prohibiting the use of figural art in the former Byzantine Adriatic lands. The one-hundred-year-old tradition of patterns was modelled after the craft of weaving and objects with filigree decoration.