Monkodonja is a hill fort occupied about 1800–1200 BC during the Bronze Age, located near the city of Rovinj. It is located on a hillside surrounded by a spatial area, a form of irregular ellipse stretching east-west, 160 m × 250 m. The settlement was surrounded with three concentric walls and two entrances that have explored so far (so called Western and Northern). The defensive wall surrounding the settlement was about 1 km long, about 3 m wide and at least 3 m tall. It was built by laying stone in the drywall technique. The stone was peeled off the hill, and its removal resulted in a useful surface. Approximately 1,000 people lived in the well-organized settlement: on the highest part was the acropolis, below it the upper town and still lower the lower town.
The Acropolis, where the higher layer of communities lived, had a nearly rectilinear space. In other parts of the settlement there was a crafts area. The houses differed with the position, size and manner of construction, and they were separated by passages and streets. Each had a hearth and numerous fragments of pottery pots originated from local workshops, but pots also came from the far east of the eastern Mediterranean. It was the first finding of fragments of Micens (Bronze Age) bowl in Istria. The Monkodonja was an important point in the communications of the northern Adriatic with Central Europe and the Aegean.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.