- Vineta
Vineta or Wineta (sometimes held to be identical with
Jomsborg ) is an ancient and possibly legendary town believed to have been on the German or Polish coast of theBaltic Sea . It was commonly said to be on the present site ofWolin inPoland or ofZinnowitz onUsedom island inGermany . Today it is said to have been nearBarth inMecklenburg-Vorpommern . At all these places, Vineta museums and Vineta festivals try to attract tourists.Around 970 Ibrāhīm ibn Ya`qūb, envoy of the
Caliph of Córdoba , reported that inPomerania was a large port "with twelve gates", whose armed force is superior to "all peoples of the north".A Danish fleet destroyed Vineta in 1159 during the
Christian izing of theWends .Traders in the 11th and
12th century reported about a town that was the most powerful port of the Baltic Sea. Bishop Adam of Bremen wrote that Vineta was the largest of all towns in Europe.There is a legend that Vineta sank in a storm tide because of the sinfulness of its inhabitants, and that before the sinking there were warning portents. It is thought likely that Vineta sank because of shifting of
distributary channels in the delta of the riverOder .In the 1840s,
Timofey Granovsky dismissed the town as a Medieval legend. Scientific evidence for the existence of Vineta is still missing.In fiction, Vineta is visited by
Nils Holgersson inSelma Lagerlöf 's "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils ".
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