The Gradište site is located 8 km northwest of Kriva Palanka near the village of Gradec. It is located in a very significant sacred space, next to the “St. Nicholas” church from the 19th century,
north of Gradište, where the hermitage of the hermit St. Joakim Osogovski was carved into the rock, which further increases the complexity and attractiveness of the location.
According to previous research, the site has been identified as a late antique castle and an important control point where two important ancient roads cross: the Herakleia-Stobi-Pautalia road and the Skupi-Paoutalia road.
The Initial preliminary results of the protective archaeological research carried out in 2013-2018, as well as according to the mobile archaeological material and architectural units, this site has the settlement phases from prehistory, late antiquity – the early Byzantine period and the Middle Ages. The strongest settlement originates from the late antique – early Byzantine period, which significantly ruined the older prehistoric settlement from the Late Bronze Age and Full Iron Age.
The first data on the site date from 1953, when the anthropogeographic (ethnographic) research of the region of Kriva Palanka was published – the Mausoleum of the author Branislav Rusić, then in 1973 Jovan Trifunovski in his work “Life in the area of Kriva Palanka – Zborna 48”, and in 1987 the archaeological adviser Cone Krstevski and doctor Dragiša Zdravkovski visited it and recorded it, during the preparation of the Archaeological Map of Macedonia, i.e. the municipality of Kriva Palanka.
This research is the result of many years of efforts of the Museum of the town of Kriva Palanka in the research of the locality, its valorization and tourist presentation in the context of the tourist complex of the village of Gradec.