Page 125 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 13(2) (2025)

Figure 3: NW Part of
the Roman Osor in the
Results of the Ground
Penetrating Radar Sur-
vey 2023–24 Indicating
the Layout of the City,
Including the Streets 125
and Insulae (elaborat-
ed by Geosphere Aus-
tria, 2024)

dieval architecture (e.g. Bully and Čaušević-Bul- have also enabled the stratigraphic information
ly 2012). contained within the airborne laser scanning
data surrounding Osor to be analysed. Based on
Recent Research Results the relative chronology of the dry stone walls out-
Osor side the city limits, evidence of a Roman system
Research into the landscape of the Osor region of dry stone walls was discovered (Doneus et al.
has been ongoing since 2012 (Doneus et al. 2015). 2022). These features were dated using the OSL
After large-scale geophysical measurements in profiling and dating method (OSL-PD), which
2014/15 (Doneus et al. 2017), Osor was the focus yielded a date range of AD 200 ± 100 (Doneus et The Roman Urbanisation of the Northern Adriatic Island of Cres
of a second geophysical survey in autumn 2023/ al. 2024). Furthermore, there is an obvious spa-
spring 2024. The results, which are being pre- tial connection between the layout of the Roman
pared for publication, provide an insight into the Osor and land surveying, as the boundary lines
NW-SE oriented street grid of a small town with of the surveying system are oriented according to
a diameter of about 300 m and the insulae meas- the city’s location, considering the location of the
uring 1 x 2 actus (fig. 3). The forum was situated forum, where the umbilicus (the intersection of
in the SW of the city, and its location was con- the survey axes) may be assumed.
firmed during archaeological rescue excavations Overall, these results provide the first clear
in the main square in 2022–24 (Baričević 2023). evidence of municipal land surveying on the
To the west, the city borders the Osor Croatian islands.
Channel, which separates the islands of Cres
and Lošinj, providing a navigable route between Beli
Osor Bay and the Lošinj Channel to the south. Archaeological Prospection
A separate article in this volume discusses the The successful application of archaeologi-
importance of the Osor Channel for (Roman) cal prospection methods in the evaluation of
shipping, as well as the issues related to coast- Roman cities hinges on the use of appropri-
al changes and the presumed location of city ate techniques, as well as on the topographical
harbours. conditions and the state of preservation of the
In recent years, systematic and large-scale archaeological structures. For example, Osor is
analyses of archaeological remote sensing data an extremely favourable location for geophysical