BELGRADE Read Online Free Page A

Belgrade. The other is situated further down the Danube at Lepenski Vir in the direction of the Black Sea where the startling remains of a settlement going back to 6000 BC were unearthed. The research undertaken on the very rich and varied finds from these diggings has been of huge significance for international scholarship in deepening our understanding of Neolithic communities, their methods of husbandry, their religious rites and culture generally. Objects from this period of the late Stone Age are on display in the National Museum (Narodni muzej) and the City Museum of Belgrade (Muzej grada Beograda).
    Although pickings from Kalemegdan and around the city centre itself have been sparser, there is evidence to support the view that a small settlement was established here in about the same period. Perhaps it functioned as a lookout post, a watchtower for the larger groups downriver. Later, tribes of Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians passed through here in periods of migratory activity during the Bronze Age from about 2000 BC to 800 BC.
    Evidence of early knowledge about Belgrade’s geographical location comes from the myths and legends passed down from generation to generation. The Homeric world knew that two important rivers met and provided a crossroads at this promontory. The rock overlooking the confluence has been identified as one of the places in the story of Jason and the Argonauts. Returning with the Golden Fleece, Jason and his crew sailed from the Black Sea up the Danube, then turned and steered down the Sava and followed its course in order to find an outlet into the Adriatic Sea before heading south for home. Greek classical authors, including Hesiod, have also left indications that they were aware of this location. From these Greek chroniclers we know that the Celts began to arrive in the area from the fourth century BC during their migration westward. They brought with them the culture and technology of the Iron Age, which they put to good use, soon driving out the Bronze-Age tribes who lived here. One of these Celtish tribes, the Singi, settled on the rock above the Sava and Danube where they built a simple wooden fortification in the third century BC.
    There are those, including Miloš Crnjanski, who maintain that some place-names around Belgrade have retained Celtic roots. Looking at the names of rivers, for example, Crnjanski writes that it is a mistake to think that the Sava and the Drava are somehow Slavonic words since they come from the Celtic roots
aw
and
dur
meaning water. (It has to be said that this etymological link has never been conclusively proven.) But whatever the truth of the debate, the site on which Kalemegdan Park now stands has played a significant role in events in the Balkan Peninsula since long before the birth of Christ. Different peoples and cultures from the ancient world have come and gone, each leaving some slight sign of their presence. These traces from archaeological, mythic and textual sources give us some idea of the earliest human activity around this place above the two rivers.
F ROM R OMAN C AMP TO S ERBIAN C APITAL
     
    The earliest visible traces of previous occupants at Kalemegdan were left by the Roman legions which fought the Celts and took their settlements along the Danube in order to secure the use of the river by Rome. These military missions were sent over a period of some forty years from 35 BC to AD 6. Having chased out the Celts, they began to build forts of their own in order to hold the ground already taken and prepare the way for further conquest in the region. The fort at Belgrade was home to more than 5,000 legionnaires and was one of a series of similar camps along the Danube. In an expansive and confident mood, the Roman conquerors turned to make a more permanent home for themselves, and around AD 69–80 replaced the wooden walls and structures with ones made of stone. They called their new settlement Singidunum, after the Celtish tribe which had prior