Page 258 - Changing Living Spaces

Aleksander Panjek and Gregor Kovačič

man-made terraces. It was mentioned for the first time in 1331. The settle-
ment, with its characteristic long rows of houses along streets, was sur-
rounded by walls towards the end of the fifteenth century, at the time of
the Turkish invasions. Thus, in addition to its defensive hilltop location,
Štanjel was further fortified. After the walls were extended in the last
decades of the sixteenth century, Štanjel became ‘a small fortified town
with a modern Renaissance wall’ (Sapač 2011, 246–9, 282; Medvešček
2019, 7–8 and 13).

The Rocks and Surfaces Around Štanjel
The Karst is a low Dinaric plateau composed of limestones and dolomites,
most of which date from the Cretaceous; there are also carbonate rocks
from the Paleogene. The karstified plateau, which has the characteristics
of a plain in the central part, extends in a northwest-southeast Dinaric
2
direction and covers an area of about 440 km (Kranjc, Bijuklič, and Žalik
Huzjan 1997). The Karst is surrounded on all sides by Eocene flysch rocks,
except in the west, where it sinks under the Quaternary sediments of the
Soča River as part of the Friulian plain.
The rock composition also varies greatly near Štanjel, where main-
ly limestones of different ages alternate in a small area. On the surface,
Eocene transitional beds with limestones, marly limestones and marls ap-
pear. In the lower part of the slopes in the direction of the Branica River
we also come across some Eocene flysch rocks which otherwise make up
most of the hills in the Branica River basin. The area is cut by a very im-
portant fault in the Dinaric direction, the Raša Fault, and by the some-
what less important Lukovica Fault in the same direction (Jurkovšek,
Tešović, and Kolar Jurkovšek 2013).
The surface around Štanjel does not have the characteristics of a
karst plain; its shape is more reminiscent of hills. This is also reflect-
ed in the conspicuous absence of dolines, as very few can be seen in the
surroundings of Štanjel. Compared to the neighbouring flysch hills of
Vipavska brda in the north, the relief of the hills around Štanjel is not
as dissected, due to the permeable carbonate rock. Intense fluvial-denu-
dational geomorphological processes take place in the hills of Vipavska
brda, dissecting the surface into a network of valleys and intermediate
ridges. In the limestones in the Štanjel area, on the other hand, the pre-
dominant process of surface formation is corrosion, which changes the
surface by dissolving the rock, forming depressions of different shapes
and sizes.

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