Svač
|
Šas Шас Shas Svač |
|
|---|---|
| Village | |
 Šas
|
|
| Coordinates: 41°59′18″N 19°19′07″E / 41.98833°N 19.31861°E | |
| Country |
 Montenegro
|
| Municipality | Ulcinj Municipality |
| Population (2003) | |
| • Total | 268 |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) |
| Area code | +382 30 |
| Car plates | UL |
Šas (Albanian: Shas, Latin: Suacium and Old Church Slavonic: Свач (Svač) is a village in Montenegro. According to the 2003 census, the village had a population of 268 people. It is located east of Ulcinj.
In the vicinity of the village is its eponymous lake, Lake Šas.
Vladimir Hill, near Šas, has an unknown fortification with a church, and is believed to be the location of Oblik, a significant fortification mentioned in the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja.
It is believed that Šas / Svač is named after Illyrian martyr Saint Astius.
The Latin form of the Šas / Svač is Suacia, and is formed from the abbreviation of sanctus (saint) – Su. and the Astius. The combination Su+Astius forms Suastius, and through the phoneme shift st → c, Suastius becomes Suacius, which in the feminine form is Suacia.
The Albanian and Montenegrin forms of Šas / Svač are not formed via translation from the Latin form. Instead, however, they are formed based on localised translations of Saint Astius.
In 1985, fragments of prehistoric pottery were found in the rocks. Even if the pottery was from various epochs, it was not separated by layers. On the eastern end, several fragments were found decorated with fingernails, which possibly indicates early neolithic origin. These fragments also show trace amounts of quartz and silex. Chalcolithic pottery was also found in the same area, with findings from a ditch in the upper part of the town dating from the same era, or slightly younger, from the Bronze Age.
The most numerous findings were of Iron Age pottery, found in several trenches, in the upper part of town and a great part of the suburbium. Such findings provides evidence for the existence of an Iron Age fort. This idea is also supplemented by constructed dry walls built of certain large stones. This type of stone was also found in some walls of medieval Svač.
Fragments of some Hellenistic pottery was found in the waterfalls east of Svač, suggesting that a Hellenistic layer could exist in the northern outskirts. Fragments of thin-walled pottery in red and yellow colors, possibly Roman, were discovered in the upper fort and in the outskirts by the northern waterfalls beneath the city.
...
Wikipedia