Description : Mikulčice is a municipality and village in Hodonín District in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 2,100 inhabitants. It lies nearby the Slovak border. From the sixth until the tenth century, a Slavic fortified settlement existed 3 km away from the modern village. The settlement was one of the main centres of the Great Moravian Empire, plausibly its capital city. Excavations, led by Josef Poulík, unearthed the remnants of twelve churches, a palace, and more than 2,500 graves (three containing African skeletons) (including a horse burial). The only still-standing church safely dated to the Great Moravian period is found in the nearby Slovak village of Kopčany just across the Morava river. The excavation complex is nationally recognised as the Mikulčice-Valy or Mikulčice Archaeopark heritage site. The oldest written reference to the village itself dates to 1131, when the village was referred to as Miculcici in Medieval Latin. Both the Czech Mikulčice and the Latin Miculcici are nouns which exist only in the plural form. Mikulčice meaning simply "the people of Mikul (dialectal form of Nicholas)".
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