engleski

The defensive system of Adriatic navigation

With its geographical position the Adriatic Sea is the shortest link of Europe via Mediterranean with Africa and Asia. This fact for thousand of years was the crucial factor which decisively influenced the history of coast and hinterland. When we are speaking about Adriatic navigation, we are turning back to geographical factors which made easten Adriatic, during these milleniums, traffic corridor of Europe towards Mediterranean and vice versa. If this point is difficult (?) to notice for the period of Antiquity, it becomes a fact from the time of Byzantine defensive system of sea traffic in early Middle Ages. For later period it is a general place for the history of Adriatic maritime affairs. In all two aspects could be discerned: geographical and defensive. 1. Adriatic has specific climate characteristics. There are two dominating winds: bora (NE) and scirocco (SE). Though it creates outstanding sea waves, scirocco was never estimated as too dangerous wind, although the perils of sailing during scirocco were never neglected by reasonable seaman. Bora was always held more dangerous, because it blows in gusts, and with this characteristic it made sailing more perilous. Therefore during the history, even till the 19th century, seamen had fear from this wind, almost to the level of phobia. Moreover, bora is a result of eastern Adriatic belt configuration and oronimy, including general geographical position of this aquatorium on European south. Notwithstanding, the only protection from bora was navigation within the same aquatorium, in the protection belt of its archipelago. At the same time, archipelago sailing enabled typical terrestrial navigation which was specially important during the period when there was no compass, or even later, when it was in use, but navigation instruments were rare and unreliable. Besides, the sea depths and currents were almost on the level of desirable optimum for the ships of that period. The western Adriatic aquatorium has opposite characteristics; too strong currents, low and difficult coast by terrestrial navigation, shallow and ooze seabed, but numerous and better equipped ports - but they could not afford shelter from bora because they were not protected by the range of islands. In this respect the first and most important part of the defensive system of Adriatic navigation were geographical factors that directed to that part of the sea where the sailing was the safest; taking into consideration meteorological, oceanographical, and terrestrial-geographical factors of aquatorium - eastern Adriatic. 2. The geographical factors that were familiarized by seamen during history, incuding their weak sides, from the Byzantine period, were included into complete defensive system of navigation. The building of defensive fortifications, for the last time in Adriatic history was performed during Austro-Hungarian dominance in this area. This introductory thesis is developed in this paper on the ground of fragmentary researches of other authors using relevant geographical, historical and archeological original material. For the first time in scientific history researches the attention is drawn to this complex defensive aspect of Adriatic aquatorium, till now unseen as complete and for milleniums functional system, present even today from the navigation-defensive point of view.

Adriatic; defensive system of navigation

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