Liburnians
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The Liburnians (or Liburni, Gk.: Libournoi) were the ancient inhabitants of Liburnia, a coastal region at northeastern Adriatic between the river Arsia (now Raša) in Istria and the river Titius (now the Krka) what is now in Croatia. The recent multi-disciplinary analyses (Yoshamya 2005) confirmed Liburnians not to have been Illyrians. The evidence indicates rather that their language was akin to the Venetic language.
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[edit] Settlements
- See also: Liburnia.
The principal settlements of the Liburnians lay in the south of their territory, in the coastal plain around Jader (Zadar), between the rivers Tedanius (Zrmanja) and Titius (Krka). A major megalithic town had been Curycta in Krk island. Other settlements were found along the coast northwards towards eastern Istria, an area which was more firmly part of Liburnia after the fifth century BC. Liburnian possessions from that time included the islands of the Kvarner bay, i.e. Curyctae (Krk), Arba (Rab), the Apsyrtides (Cres and Lošinj) and Gissa (Pag).
By the middle of the first century BC they were partly losing territory to their Illyrian neighbors on the southeast, the Delmatae and probably the Ardiaei. Over the centuries it seems that the Liburnians, having once controlled the Adriatic down to Corfu, were being steadily pushed westwards chiefly by the Greek navy, and probably also by the pressure from new Illyrian groups. Due to both these pressures, to conserve and stabilise their area Liburnians adhered to Romans by 35 BC, and then their land was incorporated into Dalmatia province.
[edit] Seafarers
The Liburnians were renowned seafarers, notorious for their raids in the Adriatic sea, which they conducted in their swift galleys. The Romans knew them principally as a people addicted to piracy. The major harbour of Liburnian navy since 5th century BC was Corynthia at eastern cape of Krk island, including 7 unearthed docks, marine arsenal, and stony fortifications; this early harbour persisted in ancient and medieval function to 16th century.
Liburnians constructed different ship types; their galaia was an early prototype of transport galleys, lembus was a fishing ship continued by the actual Croatian levut, and a drakoforos with dragonheads was the desant ship reminding of Nordic drakkars. Another liburnian warship, known as a libyrnidas to the Greeks and a liburna to the Romans, was propelled by oars; it was a smaller version of a trireme, but faster, lighter, and more agile. The liburnian design was adopted by the Romans and became a key part of Ancient Rome's navy. Such a vessel, used as a merchantman, might take on a passenger, as Lycinus relates in the second-century dialogue, Erotes, traditionally attributed to Lucian of Samosata: "I had a speedy vessel readied, the kind of bireme used above all by the Liburnians of the Ionian Gulf."
[edit] Technical culture
The available archaeological data suggested the early Liburni were mostly illiterate before the Roman conquest of northern Adriatic, and the first Liburnian inscriptions in their necropoles appeared under the subsequent Roman rule. On the other hand, the pragmatic technical culture of early Liburnians had been evidently superior to any other ancient peoples of western Balkans.
Above all, they were especially advanced in shipbuilding, and thus the subsequent Roman Imperial Navy in the main naval bases of Ravenna and Aquileia widely copied the Liburnian shipbuilding techniques, or also used there the experienced Liburnian shipbuilders. Yet before 3 millenia ago, Liburnians constructed and used their early galleys (galaia), and drakkars (dracofores).
They also used the big long swords of German type with spiral antennas. A Liburnian technical detail up today participating in modern global civilization is the well known safety-pin: early Liburnians invented them yet before 3 millenia ago, and they widely used them in clothing technique (instead of buttons); the larger safety-pins with different pendants indicating the social status of bearer, they often applied as decorative fibulas.
Shortly before the Roman disaster, the written documentation of 4th century confirmed some genial Liburnian shipbuilders of the Imperial navy constructed the first modernized wheel-ships with mechanical propulsion named liburna rotata: These advanced ships had the lateral driving-wheels propulsed by oxen force from the shipdeck (a millennium later Americans replaced these oxen by petrol machine). A wider application of the early wheel-ships then was obstructed by the imperial disaster and subsequent barbarian invasions of the Mediterranean, and so their general use was delayed for a millennium later.
[edit] Language
Main article:Liburnian language.
[edit] Religion
Anzotica, the Liburnian goddess of Love, counterpart of Venus and Aphrodite, and also Ica, their water goddess of fountains, both appear in Liburnian art of the classical period in traditional Greco-Roman fashion.
[edit] Classical sources
Perhaps the earliest mention of the Liburni in a classical source is to be found in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, a type of coasting guide also known as a "Coastal Passage". Here, the Liburni are the Adriatic people described next (chapter 21) after the Istrians (chapter 20); the Liburni are not included as an Illyrian people (who are described in chapters 22–27):
- 21. After the Istroi come the people known as Liburnoi. In the territory of these people there are the following coastal cities: Lias, Idassa, Attienites, Dyyrta, Ampsoi*, Osoi*, Pedetai, Hemionoi. These people are ruled by women, who are the wives of freeborn men, but they cohabit with their own slaves and with the men of the neighboring regions. Before the coast lie islands, of which I can record the following names (for there are many others which have no name): the island Istris 310 stades long and 120 stades wide, the Elektrides, and the Mentorides are the large islands. Then comes the river Katarbates. The voyage along the coast of the Liburnoi lasts two days.
- 22. After the Liburnoi there come the Illyrian people. (here Pseudo-Scylax continues describing the Illyrian peoples along the Adriatic coast from the northernmost to the southernmost, then moves on to non-Illyrian tribes to the south of them: Chaonians, Thesprotians, Molossians, etc.)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Barac, L. et al. Y-chromosomal heritage of Croatian population and its island isolates. Eur. J. Human. Genet. 11: 535-542, 2003.
- Batovic, Sime. Sepultures de la peuplade illyrienne des Liburnes. Bonn 1962.
- Batovic, Sime. Die Eisenzeit auf dem Gebiet des illyrischen Stammes der Liburnen. Archaeologia Jugoslavica 6, 55 p., 1965.
- Shipley, Graham. The Periplous of Pseudo-Scylax: An Interim Translation. 2002.
- Tolk, H.V. et al. MtDNA haplogroups in the populations of Croatian Adriatic Islands. Coll. Anthropol. 24: 267-279, 2000.
- Wilkes, John. The Illyrians. Blackwell Books, 1992.
- Yoshamya, Mitjel & Yoshamya, Zyelimer. Gan-Veyan: Neo-Liburnic glossary, grammar, culture, genom. Old-Croatian Archidioms, Monograph I, p. 1 - 1.224, Scientific Society for Ethnogenesis studies, Zagreb 2005.
