CULTURAL HERITAGE: - Macedonian Information Centre

GOLEM GRAD
IN PRESPA
(FROM ORESTIANS TO ROMANS)
Vera BITRAKOVA - GROZDANOVA
Prespa, that is to say the region around the Lake of Prespa, is not
mentioned in the written sources of the Ancient Period. The modern
historiography, which is also dealing with issues connected with the
ancient times in the Balkans, also places this region in the margins of
the events. If we start considering the ancient sources, we will perhaps
find some indirect data associated with this geographic space only with
Strabon. Namely, when this author speaks of “salting fish at the lakes of
Lihnis”, he also adds that they, the lakes, are situated on the Via Egnatia,
which draws to the conclusion that he was also referring to the Lake
Prespa and not only to the Lake Ohrid. There are no other lakes in the
surroundings, except Lake Malic, which was farther from the Via Egnatia
road. We must definitely not forget that even today the fish is dried as
winter food only at Prespa.
Modern authors, in the attempt to draw borders among the regions
of the tribes inhabiting the so-called Upper Macedonia in the ancient
meaning, or Mountainous Macedonia mentioned by Herodotus and
Thucydides also touch Prespa. It became particularly clear, after the
discovery of the two inscriptions in the region of Resen, where two names
have been noted on the Macedonian calendar (apelaios and dios), that
the Prespa region belonged to Ancient Macedonia. The extension of
the upper-Macedonian region Orestia, near the Prespa region, has been
accepted in science with the interpretation of the two inscriptions that
are supplementary and discovered near Vineni (Pili) and the Island of
St. Achille in Mala (Small, trans.) Prespa, where an ancient town of the
Vera Bitrakova-Grozdanova, Ph.D. is an eminent Macedonian archaeologist
and professor of ancient archaeology of the Balkans. She won the award for
scholarly achievement of the Republic of Macedonia “Goce Delcev” in 1988
and was presented the prestigious Herder Prize in 1999. She is a researcher of
the region of Prespa, Ohrid and Struga.
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UDC: 903.4:711.24(497.7-21)