Queen Teuta wasn't just a queen, she was pirate queen. According to the books, after the death of her husband Argon, queen Teuta continues conquering the territories of Greece. She was beautiful and very smart, they say that she has man heart in woman body. She and her army robbed a thousand ships and the legend about her gold still live.
It isn't hard to imagine how this small country was rich when they had their own money 230 years B.C. It means that they had very good developed water and land transport trade.
After some time, a couple of cities of Greece call Roman Empire to help them. In the war against Roman Emire, Illyrians lost a lot of territories. When Roman Empire attacked Kotor she pulled back with her army on the mountain Gradina above Risan where her castle was. One day when Romans decided to attack and get in the castle they founded the empty castle.
Now, legend starts that she jumped with her gold in an underground lake, which we believe that is located in mountain Gradina.
That's it, shorter story. Now I will show you what we know until now.
First, we think that it is impossible that she made a castle on the top of the mountain without drink water. Also, how she was defending the castle for months without drink water. Professor Petar Martinović said that there must be some underground tunnels because she and her army needed food and water since they were defending the castle couple of months. On the image above, Kriti Ponor is a hole where we think that she might jump, if the legend is true.
Every winter, during big rains there is a big water pressure on the bottom of the mountain, and diving team found some gold coins and jewelry there. I took some screenshots from Google Street View so I can show you where is that hole on the bottom of mountain.
This mystery tried to figure out a couple of teams, first, it was an archaeological team led by Jovanom Petrovićem during 1975th with diving teams. They were investigating caves Sopot and Spila and they found coins. Professor Martinovic investigated it and told that it is from the time of old Illyrians.
Locals said that during big rains when underground lake go up, that they can feel the big pressure of river under the whole area. The place where the river flows into the sea is full of stones from inside the mountain what river dropped off during high rains. Also, this area is full of snakes horned viper so without protection it is not safe to go.
And that's it what we know until now. Thank you for reading and I hope that I will write again about this lake with much more founded traces or maybe about founded underground lake :).
