The beautiful stone ornaments from the nearby Roman ruins, the Humcans built into walls of their houses, like, for example the houses of P. Dragicevic and F. Lauric. We witness today the gradual decay of houses into ruins, because, with each day that passes Humac has more empty homes and fewer inhabitants.
Name. At the end of the 11th century (in 1080, the Bracan Tjesen bought the estate of a Split nobleman with the estate-buildings and the farmers’ houses on Gomilje on Brac. This Gomilje is on the western hill-side on Donji Humac under Klis (ecclesia) where the legend of an old monastery is still kept. In the vicinity of Velo brdo (The High Hill), there still exists the name Tisene strane (The quarters is Tisen). It is reasonable to suppose that in the 11th century Donji Humac was known as Gomilje. It is only in 1375 that the name Humac is mentioned for the first time.
History and monuments. The cave of Kopacina to the northwest of Donji Humac is a place of a still not completed exploration of Brac prehistory. By the way of the ridge of Prslac, where in a burial mound a grave with vessels containing two Byzantine coins was found, one reaches the interior of the island passing by the prehistoric cairns of Gnjilac, Velika gomila and Brkata (Lat. Verticata). Westwards of the hill near the pre-Romansque chapel of ST. Elias there is the now neglected pool of Banja (Lat. balnea-basin). In the region of Sutulija (Lat. sanctus Elias) there is a grave dug out in stone (2,20 to 1 meters). At the south foot of Brkata a sacophagus with a relief of two figure and a prehistoric grave in a burial mound were found. The remains of a Roman Mausoleum (4,40 to 3,50 meters) built of dressed stone with profiled ending lines is set near the chapel of St. Elias. This grave is only a part of a still richer architecture some of whose decorative fragments are also built into the walls of the old Croatian chapel of St. Elias. This grave is only a part of a still richer architecture some of whose decorative fragments are also built into the walls of the old Croatian chapel of St. Elias. They appear as if to conform the hypothesis of an uninterrupted continuity and influences of the different ethical and artistic layers found in the region that we are speaking about. This mausoleum is the finest ancient monument on the island (C. Fiskovic). From the Early Christian period there are few chapels set on the more prominent points of the former settlement. The chapel of St. Elias has an apse which is quadrangular from the exterior and semicircular in the interior of the chapel. It is barrel-vaulted and the walls are partitioned with blind arcades. It originates from the 10th century to the 11th century and is therefore one of the oldest Early Croatian chapels on the island. The chapel of St. Lucas on the way from Donji Humac to Supetar is built out of irregularly dressed stone and with a larger arch over the narrow door. On its wall a drawing of a sailing boat was found. It is our oldest medieval drawing of a boat that is preserved. It is, as well as the church, from the 11th or the 12th century. There are some Roman remains around it, the most important one being that of an Early Christian sarcophagus with a cross. The chapel of St. Andrew, with a damaged roof, flat walls and semicircular apse, set on the left side of the road leading from Nerezisca to Supetar, was erected in the 13th or in the 14th centurury, probably on the remains of Roman ruins. here were found the Early Croatian ear-rings and some Byzantine coins from the 11th century. Some of the older Brac chroniclers suppose that there was a Benedictine monastery next to the chapel but this has not yet been proved. The most valuable monument is the parish church raised on the picturesque Humac. It was formerly a vaulted chapel (5,50 to 3 m), mentioned in the documents as Stomorica ( Lat. Sancta Maria). In view of linguistic evidence, it should date from the 10th century. There was an additional building in the beginning of the 14th century. At that time it was almost twice as big. It was encircled with climatoij (Lat. cimeterium-cemetery). At the beginning of the 18th century it was once more lengthened and enlarged with two side-naves while a beautiful and interesting belfry bears a red baroque cupola. In this church, on the wall of the former shrine, there is a valuable fresco (93 to 139), which presents Christ on the thrne between the Mother and the bearded John the Baptist. Such a composition is typical of Byzantine iconography and is, according to Lj. Karaman, evidently connected with the paintings in the Byzantine crypts in southern Italy. The basic colours are dark red, dark yellow and white, sililiar to the red soil, clay and lime. It dates from the end of the 13th century, the time when we find only a few frescoes in Dalmatia (D. Domancic). This picture, form being placed in a small Brac village, only gains in value and importance. It is preserved owing to the cult of Our Lady and the popular rumours of her power to perform miracles. According to the rumours, on each 20th of January, the day of the place’s patrons St. Fabian and St. Sebastian, she becomes all bedewed. She was the subject of the greatest and best known kermis on the island which was still held when she came to be replaced by the cult of St. Anna (on July 26th) The continuity of monumental remains and place-names in the surroundings of this little village, speaks’ in favour of the undoubtely intensive life that the region lived in the middle Ages.