The lands vacated by the Germanic peoples during the 5th and 6th centuries were settled by the Slavs. They gradually spread to the River Odra, inhabited vast areas north of the Danube and swept across the Balkan Peninsula, an important part of the Byzantine Empire.

The Slavs reached the northern Adriatic Sea and the eastern Alps at the end of the 6th century. Once hostilities ceased, they entered into a process of contact and cooperation with the indigenous Romans. Literary sources from the 8th century write of Carniola, the homeland of the Slavs (Carniola Sclavorum patria) on Slovenian territory, which was probably a principality. Until the mid-8th century, there was also an independent principality of Carantania in the northern part of the Slavic lands.

The Slavic pottery from the 8^th and 9^th centuries was thrown on a slow wheel. The most characteristic form is a jar with an everted rim and decorated with either straight or wavy lines that were incised either with a comb or an awl. Their underside frequently shows the impression of the wheel’s axis, or bears a potter’s mark. The jars from the cemeteries at Bled (8, 9), from the settlement at Pržanj in Ljubljana (1) and from the riverbed of the Ljubljanica (2-7) can be attributed to pottery of the Middle Danube cultural tradition.

Knific, Timotej in Nabergoj, Tomaž, 2016: Medieval Stories from the Crossroads, Ljubljana, Fig. 77, pp. 61-65.