The ”Koto” company from Serbia, selected by UNESCO to restore the medieval Serbian fortress in Novo Brdo, has found cultural treasures inside the building.
According to Belgrade based daily Blic, the company “Koto” found a church with the remains of frescoes, a steam bath, the remains of a palace, two buildings, streets, a square, tanks with absorbent wells, while exploring the interior of the 400-square-meter fortress with the consent of the designer, supervisor and project implementer.
Koto company said it had carried out the entire process in accordance with the project, which preparation, according to UNESCO, was entrusted to the design bureau “Omega Engineering” from Dubrovnik, Blic added.
A priceless cultural treasure, belonging to the World Heritage Site, was hidden for centuries beneath a seven-meter-high embankment of earth and stone, until 2015 when restoration work on the fort began.
“The artefacts found have been researched, recorded, documented and presented in detail,” Blic reports.
The archaeological heritage of the site is fully protected and preserved, and the remaining works to be carried out in the final phase relate solely to the reinforcement of the newly constructed parts of the walls, which have suffered partial damage during this and last year.
“The faces of the walls where the defects occurred did not exist before we erected them in 2015 and 2016. The repair of the defects on the newly constructed part of the building in no way threatens the original remnants of the fortifications and can be repaired in an efficient manner, that was predicted by the project designer, through a remediation project in accordance with the UNESCO order,” The company Koto said,
The rehabilitation work carried out in accordance with the UNESCO order and Pristina’s permit was suspended by a decision of the Kosovo Institute for the Protection of Monuments in early September, and that decision was forbidden for Koto to carry out any further work.
“We are surprised by this decision of the Kosovo Institute for the Protection of Monuments, especially given that we have had good cooperation with them in the realization of the project so far,” Koto said.
