Daorson Illyrian City

Daorson is one of the most significant archaeological sites in Bosnia and Herzegovina, set in the village of Ošanići above Stolac. It was the capital of the Daorsi, a Hellenised Illyrian tribe that lived in the Neretva valley and peaked in the 3rd–2nd centuries BC. The town was divided into three parts, and its heart was an acropolis ringed by mighty cyclopean walls of huge stone blocks laid without any mortar – much like ancient Mycenae in Greece.

The Daorsi adopted the Greek language and script and traded actively with the Greeks, and their sophistication shows in many finds: amphorae, fine pottery, a lavish bronze helmet with Greek deities, and their own coins inscribed ΔΑΟΡΣΩΝ. It was destroyed by the Illyrian Delmatae in the mid-1st century BC, and life never returned to its ruins. Today Daorson is a national monument and a silent witness to a powerful ancient civilisation.