Podaca

History

Podaca village was initially located up the hill, but since 60s along the coast, divided in three neighborhoods that are seamlessly connected to next villages: Kapeć (bordering Zaostrog), Viskovića vala and Ravanje (bordering Brist). Old Podaca was founded on the rocky slopes as defensible location, and there are traces of human habitation since Stone Age, like a stone mallet for mixing grain, which is kept in a Franciscan monastery at Zaostrog. Many stone ruins beneath Biokovo bear witness to the period of Illyrian habitation (2000 years BC - 1st century). During the Roman rule this area was administrated from Narona. There are many artifacts from that period like a broken jar with a silver coin with a Roman emperor Sever (193-211AD), which were found here. Other remains from the Roman age include a part of the walls, near which a Christian tone tablet was found, dated from the Middle Ages. During the Large migrations Croats inhabited these parts (7th - 8th century). They founded their settlements high on the hilltops, in order to have a more defensible position and to make use of mountain pastures. The Middle Ages were marked with a constant struggle between Croats and Venetians. Croats were at the peak of their naval might during the dominance of Kacic dynasty, with their decline (1280) Croatian naval dominance also declined. One of the remains from that period (11th-12th century) is an old Croatian church of St. Ivan with tombs of Kacic family at Gornja Podaca, which were Kacic ancestral lands. The church of St. Ivan at the Podaca cemetery was built in pre-Romanesque period in the 11th and 12th centuries. Not far from the church of St. Ivan, built in 1492, stood the church of St. Stjepan, which was razed to the ground in the 18th century to make room for a…