The modest structure has Christ’s monogram in red stones on it s mosaic floor

The most important town in the province, Naissus (NIS today), was the birthplace of Emperor Constantine, who proclaimed Christianity as the state religion in 313. The apse of the church partially covers the foundations of more ancient constructions, including ramparts which surrounded a vast complex of villas and Roman palaces. Its remnants, discovered in the 1970s, could easily disappear under the weeds of this badly-maintained site, opened in 1945 under its ancient name Mediana.

"We began the campaign this summer with the modest ambition of discovering the western ramparts of the complex, which were lacking," Vasic said. He insisted his team wanted to "verify that nothing was hidden under the future paths of what will become an archaeological park."

But it was without counting on the random chance of a great discovery. The path, going through the church site, will be changed, since several individual graves excavated so far indicated that the location was in fact a graveyard. The archaeologists are thus planning to dig out the entire site. Soon after the sudden discovery of the church, another surprise awaited the archaeologists only a few metres away.

"As I was digging, I saw a piece of metal which projected above the wall," a young archaeologist, Nadezda Gavrilovic, said. The entire team then slowly started digging out the object. It took them several days to realize that they had just found three pieces of bronze fence carefully hidden underground, probably to hide it from barbarians who invaded the region in 441. Vasic did not have a chance to examine the finding in detail, but he insisted that "one thing is sure, the cast bronze fence is a masterpiece."

It could have been made only in an imperial art workshop, where the best artists were working, Vasic explained. He noted that the meter-high and 90 centimeters wide fence, consisting of entangled bars, was made in the first two decades of the fourth century by Greek or Asia Minor artists, and that it came from a pagan temple.

Items found in the graves are testimony that pagans and Christians coexisted in the region at the time. The three elements of the fence, decorated with plaques with heads of lions and medusas, were likely linked by divinity busts positioned on the top of the columns. Vasic was thus able to identify the goddess of the moon, Artemis, while two other divinities could have been those of the goddess of medicine, Esculape, and goddess of health, Hygia.

"There must be a divinity of the sun, but it did not reach us," Vasic said, adding he still hoped to discover it. More hidden treasures of the 200-hectare (500-acre) Mediana site are probably still waiting to be found.