Recent archeological discoveries have offered a new perspective not only on the history of Petrovaradin, but on the entire region. At the upper fortress, the remains of an earlier
Paleolithic settlement dating from 19,000 to 15,000 BC has been discovered. With this new development it has been established that there has been a continuous settlement at this site from the Paleolithic age to the present. During the excavations carried out in 2005, archeologists also discovered another significant find. Examining remains from the early
Bronze Age (c. 3000 BC), ramparts were discovered which testify that already at that time a fortified settlement existed at the Petrovaradin site. which was a part of the fortified borders (
limes) along the Danube. The turning point in the history of the area came in 1235 AD when
King Béla IV of Hungary brought a group of the Order of
Cistercians from France. This order of monks built the monastery Bélakút upon the remains of the Roman fortress of Cusum. The walls of this monastery were built between 1247 and 1252 and represent the fortifications at this site during the Middle Ages. The fortress was strengthened due to the threat of Ottoman invasion. However the fortress fell after a two-week siege in 1526. In 1692, the
Hofkriegsrath ordered engineers to Petrovaradin to investigate the area in order to build a new fortress. Count
Keysersfeld received both financial and personnel support.
Clock tower The minute and hour hands on the clock tower are reversed, with the small hand showing minutes, and the big hand showing hours. It was created as such so that fishermen on the Danube river can see the time from a long distance. The "reversed clock" as it is known, is one of the landmarks of Petrovaradin fortress.
EXIT festival EXIT festival is an annual summer music festival that used to be held at the fortress since its inception in 2001. Since then, it has grown from the biggest festival in South-Eastern Europe, to one of the biggest in Europe. In 2025, due to cuts in government funding caused by the organizers' support for ongoing
student protests, Organizers announced Exit would now take place at the
Great Pyramid of Giza. ==See also==