Osor beyond the myth

Human history is inseparably linked with myths. Throughout the millennia, myths have been helpful in making the world understandable. Today, science takes over this task and assists us in explaining the world apart from myths and superstition. Nevertheless, myths are an important source for archaeology as they contain clues to earlier worlds. The project sets out on a journey from the Greek mythology and the legend of the Argonauts to a scientific analysis. The focus is on the prehistoric and Roman town of Osor on the Croatian island of Cres. The Croatian islands determined the sea routes between Italy and Greece thousands of years ago, offering not only favourable sea currents and coastal winds, but also shelter, supplies and orientation on the sailing routes. The city of Osor may have been a hub for the movement of people and goods along these routes, as finds from Italy or Greece indicate. The development of the town was mainly related to the good accessibility, which was perhaps made possible as early as the Iron Age by the construction of a navigable channel that separates the islands of Cres and Lošinj to this day. At the same time, the opening of the channel probably set natural processes in motion that led to sediment deposits on the seabed and made navigation impossible in the Middle Ages at the latest. Over the next three years, more than 20 researchers from Slovenia, Croatia, the USA and Austria will focus primarily on the question of how Osor determined the Adriatic shipping routes in the Iron Age and Roman times. Where did the people and the trade goods come from and how did they find their way to the largest Croatian island? Was the city accessible at all by the large Roman merchant and war ships, and where were the safe anchorages? After all, the Kvarner region, which includes the island of Cres, is one of the most dangerous sailing passages on the route between Italy and Greece due to the stormy north-east wind. The project combines studies of human remains (anthropology) and archaeological finds (archaeometallurgy) with a reconstruction of landscape changes (remote sensing, geophysical prospection and geology). At the same time, the methods are chosen in such a way that they allow seamless research above and below water. A special role is played by airborne scanners that enable three-dimensional measurement of the relief below and above today`s sea level. These data not only form the basis for a reconstruction of sea level in antiquity, but also for evaluating Osor as a former maritime trading hub.