# Dalmatian Stone Slab Roof

> Traditional roofs of thin limestone slabs (kamene ploče) on houses and dry-stone huts (bunje) of the Croatian Adriatic coast and islands.

- URL: https://roof.wiki/dalmatian-stone-slab-roof/
- Topic: Roofing Around the World
- Also known as: kamene ploče; Croatian stone roof; bunja; bunje
- Regions: Europe
- First published: 2026-11-02 · Last reviewed: 2026-11-02
- Cite as: "Dalmatian Stone Slab Roof." roof.wiki. https://roof.wiki/dalmatian-stone-slab-roof/

## Key facts

- **Material:** Thin limestone slabs
- **Region:** Dalmatian coast and islands
- **Related huts:** Bunje, kućeri
- **Status:** Largely replaced by clay tile; reviving

Along the Croatian Adriatic coast and on its islands, traditional houses and field shelters were roofed with slabs of local limestone, in Croatian *kamene ploče* ("stone slabs"). These roofs used the same stone as the walls and fields around them and were once common before clay tiles replaced them.

## Houses

On Dugi Otok, in the area now protected as Telašćica Nature Park, early houses were built of dry-laid stone, with one part for people and another for livestock, and roofed with natural stone slabs that needed little or no working. Later, walls were bound with a plaster of sand, lime and red soil, and ceilings were carried on timber beams. The park contains more than 200 small old houses. A typical house had a *konoba*, a cellar dug into the ground that stays cool in summer and warm in winter, with the kitchen (*kužina*) and its fireplace (*komin*) above.

## Island quarries

Builders chose thin, light slabs for roofs. In Bol, on the island of Brač, houses were roofed with slabs quarried at a small site called Petrore, about a kilometre inland on the north coast of neighbouring Hvar; donkeys carried them to the shore and boats ferried them across the channel. The name may relate to the old Brač word *petrade*, "quarries". Small quarries with tool marks still survive on Hvar's north coast.

## Dry-stone shelters

- **Bunje** are small dry-built stone shelters covered with slabs, some of them round, built to shelter people in the fields from rain.
- **Kućeri** are double-walled stone shelters on hilltops, built with the entrance facing away from the *bura* or *jugo* winds so that a shepherd could watch the flock.

These belong to the wider Mediterranean family of corbelled and slab-roofed dry-stone buildings that includes the trulli of Puglia and the giren of Malta.

## Decline and revival

Modern roof tiles ended the use of stone slabs, and few original roofs survive outside museum-like houses and old photographs. Renewed interest in traditional architecture has brought stone slabs back in new forms.

## Sources

1. Construction — Telašćica Nature Park. https://pp-telascica.hr/construction/?lang=en
2. From which stone was Bol on the island of Brač built? — Croatia Week. https://www.croatiaweek.com/?p=113553