Page 5 - Osor v fokusu znanosti

Osor in the Scientific Spotlight:
Osor Beyond the Myth
2025
Martina Blečić Kavur and Boris Kavur

The bilateral research project Osor Beyond the Myth, funded by the Slove-
nian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS) and the Austrian Science Fund November
(FWF) within the Weave programme, has successfully brought together re-
searchers from various disciplines to study Osor. The town, situated at the
junction of the islands of Cres and Lošinj in Kvarner Bay, Croatia, was one of
the most important regional centres during the Late Prehistoric and Roman 4–5
periods. The project subtly weaves together the mythological background
with contemporary scientific insights, viewing Osor as a unified terrestrial Koper,
and maritime organism – a place where myth and reality, nature and culture,
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converge.Throughamultidisciplinaryapproach–includinggeology,archae-
ology, history, epigraphy, anthropology, biology and chemistry – the project
enables a deeper understanding of the complexity of past life in this excep- Spotlight
tional area. Special attention is given to the landscape context, peripheral
land use, and the dynamics and strategic role of the town within the north-
ern Adriatic region and its cultural networks of the time.
In the past two decades, research has revealed many new archaeologi- Scientific
cal finds, greater cultural variability, and more intensive cultural interactions.
Consequently, one of the main aims of the project has been to re-evaluate
the
the cultural history of Osor in the context of insularity, as well as its regional
and interregional connections in an innovative manner. The project has also
in
greatly benefited from recent rescue excavations (2018–2025), which have
significantly enriched the available data and introduced numerous new re- Osor
search challenges.
The aim of the conference Osor in the Scientific Spotlight is to bring to-
gether the latest research and a range of methodological approaches, in-
tegrating their results into a comprehensive scientific synthesis to provide
a deeper understanding of the town and its development within a broader
cultural and temporal framework – beyond the myth. The impressive num-
ber of participants from six countries attests to the success and relevance of
this approach. For the first time in over 150 years of research, experts from
diverse disciplines have gathered and focused their scholarly attention ex-
clusively on Osor – the small eternal town, whose existence has connected
and inspired for more than three millennia.

© 2025 Author(s) 5