Gardun is a
village
A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...
at the top of the hill of Gardun, just 1 km south of
Trilj
Trilj () is a Cities of Croatia, town and Naselje, settlement in inland Dalmatia, Croatia. It is located northeast of Split (city), Split. In 2021, its population was 8182.
Trilj was a traffic hub in Roman Dalmatia, Roman times, when a stone br ...
.
In the 1997, excavations of the remains of
legionary
The Roman legionary (in Latin ''legionarius''; : ''legionarii'') was a citizen soldier of the Roman army. These soldiers would conquer and defend the territories of ancient Rome during the Republic and Principate eras, alongside auxiliary and c ...
fortress
A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...
of
Tilurium
Tilurium was an ancient settlement and military site located at Gardun above the modern town of Trilj in Croatia. Originally an Illyrian hill-fort of the Delmatae tribe, it later became a major Roman legionary fortress and continued as a fort ...
started on the southern outskirts of the village.
Tilurium guarded the entrance to the Cetina valley from the south and the approach to the provincial capital at
Salona
Salona (, ) was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia and near to Split, in Croatia. It was one of the largest cities of the late Roman empire with 60,000 inhabitants. It was the last residence of the final western ...
.
[Smith, D., Gaffney, V., Grossman, D., Howard, A.J., Milosevic, A., Ostir, K., Podobnikar, T., Smith, W., Tetlow, E., Tingle, M., and Tinsley, H. 2006. Assessing the later prehistoric environmental archaeology and landscape development of the Cetina Valley, Croatia. ''Environmental Archaeology'' 11 (2): 171-186]
References
{{commonscat, Gardun
Populated places in Split-Dalmatia County