Between War and Peace Illyrian Communities on the Island of Korčula in Protohistoric Times

The journal Živa Antika and its publisher, the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, are associated with the work of Petar Lisičar, one of the most meritorious archaeologists and historians, whose small but significant bibliography also covers the prehistoric and ancient periods of his native island of Korčula. Since his work from the middle of the 20th century up to the present, knowledge about the island’s indigenous Iron Age population has developed considerably, both topographically and culturally. On this occasion, therefore, an attempt will be made to contextualise the peculiarities of the island’s geographical position and, thus, of the communities that had settled on it in the protohistoric period, when the southern part of the Adriatic was the scene of several episodes of warfare between the indigenous population and the Greeks/Romans. The discussion of the possible role of the Korčula communities in certain episodes, their military potential, but also the apparent peacetime contacts, especially with regard to trade, with the “opposing” sides, will be based mainly on the results of the archaeological excavations of the Iron Age hillfort Kopila above the Blato field, which have been carried out for a decade by the Vela Luka Culture Centre and the Department of Archaeology of the University of Zadar. The collection of metal, glass and ceramic finds, very diverse with regard to function and provenance, recovered from the settlement part of the site, and especially the necropolis, testifies that this specific Illyrian community from the island of Korčula must have been an active, even respectable participant in the aforementioned events in the last centuries BC.