Page 9 - Discovering Hvar
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The island’s elongated shape is its unchanging determinant, accentuated by the point- ALDO ČAVIĆ
ed end on the side facing the Dalmatian mainland, 6 km away. On this side the tip of
the island almost pierces into the wide delta of the river Neretva. The shape resembles
an awl, as it is reflected in Lesina, one of the island’s Italian names. To some, it also re-
semblesa flint stone dagger, as a poet had observed. At the tip of the dagger lies Sućuraj
(Sveti Juraj = St. George), and at the opposite end is cape Pelegrin. They were named
after the small medieval churches, built at the opposite tips of the island. The holy
knight George, killing the dragon with a spear, was a saint and a patron of pilgrims.
The church devoted to Pelegrin, at the island’s tip open to the Adriatic Sea, was the first
the pilgrims on the galleys spotted on their long voyage from Venice to the Holy Land.
Lying between these two endpoints is the island, green from the pines and olive trees,
grey from the washed-out stone, red from the soil and white from the labours of human
hands that had for thousands of years stacked the stones into piles and buildings,
bringing order to the wild beauty of God’s creation. Very few spots on the island can
be found where man has not made his mark. When a summer fire burns some impass-
able green thicket, from the ashes often emerges a terrace-supporting wall, a stone
path, a drywall field shelter – trim, or just a neatly stacked pile of stones. Traces of
human labour are everywhere.
Man has been present on the island of Hvar since the Neolithic. Of the many caves
that were his shelter or venues of cult rituals, the best known is Grapčeva Cave on the
island’s south side, above Gromin Dolac. Archaeologist Grga Novak, native of Hvar,
discovered in it a multitude of broken fragments of round-bottomed vessels with
geometric motifs in the shape of spirals and meanders, executed with a chisel and
painted in white and red on blue and brown background. He introduced these
findings to the science of archaeology as Hvar’s Neolithic Culture of Painted Pottery.
In early Bronze Age, approximately 2500 years B.C., Hvar was colonised by Indo-
European peoples who built settlements, called gradine, on the island’s many
strategic hilltops. The remains of their building endeavours are to be found in the
form of numerous tumuli, burial stone mounds, scattered all over the island. In the 1st
millennium B.C. Greek writers began to call this population by a common name,
Illyrians. These mysterious peoples had no script, but were skilled seamen, as we
learn from ancient sources. Greek colonists encountered the native population
when in 385/84 B.C. they sailed to Hvar from the Aegean island of Paros. This date
marks the beginning of Hvar’s written history.
‘’Late that year in Athens, Diotreph became archon, and in Rome Lucius Valerius and
Aulus Malius became consuls, and the Eleians held 99th Olympic Games in which Diony-
sius of Syracuse won. At this time the people of Paros who colonised Pharos founded
and fortified a town on the shore, and the barbarians who lived there before were left
to live in peace in some fortification that was hugely inaccessible.’’ (Diodorus of Sic-
ily, Bibliotheke historike, Book XV) In the following year, Greek colonists fought against
Discovering Hvar 7