Brac Island’s most defining feature is its stone. Since Antiquity, it has shaped the island’s history, culture, traditions and economic fortunes. Grapes and olives thrived in the mineral-rich soil of its corrugated limestone valleys. Sheep and goats were equally suited to the rocky terrain. The island’s earliest towns were not built on the coast, but on the higher, safer elevations inland. Skrip, Brac’s oldest settlement, was built on the top of a hill. Its name comes from the Latin ‘scrupus’ meaning 'big sharp stone’. Abundant natural building material defined the design and architecture of everything on the island, from drystone walls and terracotta courtyards, to rooftops and cathedrals.

Brac stone has also mirrored the wealth and power of empires - Greek, Roman and Venetian. The most beautiful white stone comes from quarries on the northern coast - Sutivan, Splitska and Pucisca. Here the sea is deep and the coastline indented with safe bays and ports for transporting and loading the colossal blocks of marble onto waiting ships. Brac stone was used in constructing some of the world’s most famous buildings - Diocletian’s Palace in Split, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, the Reichstag in Berlin and the White House in Washington, D.C. It is said that if all the ships carrying stone that ever left Brac were lined up in a row, its length would exceed that of the Great Wall of China.