Karnburg Archaeological Site

Note: A closely related entity exists as Karnburg (archaeological site, same location near Maria Saal). The Karnburg Archaeological Site is the site of Karnburg (or Krn Grad in Slovenian), the earliest known seat of Carantania, the 7th-century Slavic principality that is the earliest documented ancestor of the Austrian province of Carinthia (Kärnten).

The seat of Carantania, the 7th-century Slavic principality that is the earliest documented ancestor of the Austrian province of Carinthia. The Fürstenstein (Duke’s Stone), a Roman column capital near this site, was used for the investiture of Carinthian dukes from the 7th to the 14th century in a ritual requiring the new duke to receive consent from a free peasant, in local Slavic dialect, before any feudal ceremony. Political theorists from Jean Bodin to Thomas Jefferson cited this ritual as historical evidence of popular sovereignty. Free; open terrain near Maria Saal, 15 minutes from Klagenfurt.