These are the stories you can open in the 3D view, each at its own numbered point on the model.
1Clement's monastery
This is Plaošnik, a terrace on the south slope of the old-town hill, between the citadel and Kaneo. Clement, a disciple of Cyril and Methodius, came to this region in 886. In 893 he built a monastery here, dedicated to St. Panteleimon, and by tradition he was buried in it in 916. The church in front of you stands on the foundations of his church.
Founded: 893, by St. Clement of Ohrid
Dedication: St. Panteleimon, today St. Clement and Panteleimon
Clement taught here. The school he founded is known today as the Ohrid Literary School. Its pupils copied and wrote church books in Slavonic, first in the Glagolitic alphabet and, from the late 9th century, also in Cyrillic. Archaeologists working on the terrace are still looking for the monastery buildings in which the school worked.
In the Ottoman period, after 1395, Clement's church was turned into a mosque, known as the Imaret mosque, and his relics were taken to the church of the Holy Mother of God Peribleptos, up the hill. In recent times the mosque was removed and the church was rebuilt on its old foundations. It was consecrated on 11 August 2002, when the relics came back. Parts of the mosque walls are shown in the ground.
The walls above the foundations are new. They follow the old plan: a core with three apses, a dome on a tall drum over the middle, and a narthex to the west. The builders used the local way of building, stone framed by brick, with red canal tiles on the roofs, so the church matches its medieval neighbours. The bright, even brick is the easiest way to tell its age.
Long before Clement, a large early-Christian basilica stood on this terrace, built in the late 4th or early 5th century. The museum describes it as almost the size of a football pitch, with three aisles, a narthex, an atrium and a baptistery with three conches. It was probably destroyed in the earthquake of 518. The low walls around you are part of what the excavations have uncovered.
The baptistery floor was paved with mosaics of birds, deer, peacocks and a fish. One panel shows the four rivers of Paradise as human heads pouring water, which the museum describes as unique in early-Christian art. About 100 square metres survive, under the protective roofs. The donors' inscription names no one: it was made by those whose names only God knows. The floor shown here is a simplified impression, not a copy.
Surviving mosaic: about 100 m²
Motifs: birds, deer, peacocks, a fish, the rivers of Paradise
North of the church, marble column shafts and capitals stand and lie where the excavations left them, pieces of the older buildings on the terrace. The finds reach across many centuries. In 2007 the archaeologists found a hoard of about 2,383 Venetian coins here. The digging continues, and each season can change the picture of what stood on Plaošnik.
From the edge of the terrace the slope falls through pines toward Kaneo and the water, some sixty to seventy metres below. Lake Ohrid lies at about 693 metres above sea level and is up to 288 metres deep. It became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979, and in 1980 the listing was extended to the cultural heritage of the town. Across the water rise the mountains of the Albanian shore.
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