Hello everyone.
Yesterday was quite adventurous day. It started with one visit to biggest tombstone or stećak in Bosnia and Herzegovina and ended up with lovely hike in village Ledići and visiting Stećak necropilis in the village.
Before start of our journey I will talk a bit about stećak or monumental tombstones in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
These monumental tombstones are found across Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is estimated that there more than 60 000 tombstones around Bosnia and Herzegovina. First ones date from second half of 12th century and they reached its peak in usage and production(cutting) in 14th and 15th century. Tombstones slowly decline its usage in 16th century and stopped in mid 16th century. Most of the tombstones are from 14th to 16th century.
Here are some examples that I took photos from other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
They can have different decorations and vary in sizes.
Size and decoration types is according to importance of the person.
This is necropolis Radimlja near city Stolac. This is one of the most important necropolis of Stećak in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is also is on the UNSESCO list of World hertitage.
You can see different sizes and shapes of tombstones.
According to the shapes we divide them into slabs, crates, gabled, cruciform, pillars and amorphous tombstones.
And here our story begins. Earlies we discussed to visit biggest monumental tombstone in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is located in necropolis Pavlovac in Sarajevo so it was very close to us. We did not now that this is first stop in our journey.
We arrived at the necropolis Pavlovac. In the back you can see mountain Trebević. I will show you view from that mountain toward this place.
This is from our hike to Trebević mountain.
The location of necropolis Pavlovac is somewhere above the pine tree that is in the middle. So somewhere around center of the photo.
And here we are. This is tombstone is biggest monumental tombstone or stećak in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the world as well.
Historians connect this tombstone to duke Pavlo Radanović who died in 1415. He was from important family Pavlović and supporter of King Tvrtko ll Kotromanić.
It may explain the size of the tombstone.
This tombstone is so big and it is curved out of one huge stone.
It is estimated that weight of this tombstone is 32 tons. Base weights 18 tons and upper part is 14 tons. On this necropolis there were 39 tombstone before. But this location was army poligon in Yugoslavia and all other tombstones were destroyed. Due to its massive size this Stećak manage to stay unharmed. Also worth noting is that out of 100 000 monumetal tombstones found in Bosnia and Herzegovina and surrounding countries less than 1% had remains under them. So it means they had not only tombstone but also other symbolic and social meaning.
Bosnia poet Mehmedalija Mak Dizdar refers to Stećci as Kameni spavač or Stone sleeper as he called his poem collection book in 1966 Stone sleeper or Kameni spavač.
It is quite interesting name.
It looks massive in person. And to think that in that time period people brought the stones and carved it here implies so much effort spent.
While here friend suggested that we visit one more necropolis that contains one wide tombstone. Maybe one of the widest ones.
And just like that our journey continues from here to the village Ledići and medieval tombstone necropolis in Borija in village Ledići.
It takes around 1 hour to get to the next location as I remember correctly. Here we stopped to enjoy surrounding. Several mountains around surrounding this area. You can see mountain Bjelašnica, Jahorina and Treskavica while traveling to our location.
This here is mountain Treskavica.
Views are so beautiful.
And finally we arrived in village Ledići. Here there is a lovely waterfall Zbišće that we decided to visit first. This is small river that passes through the village.
Waterfall is hidden. You just follow the water and sound of the water.
Mill on the way to the waterfall.
Wheel where water comes and moves the wheel and mechanism inside.
Small wooden canal to lead water to the mill. I think you cut off water supply when you are not using mill.
Views are beautiful. Here you can only hear water sound and enjoy surrounding.
Waterfall gets bigger as you climb down.
Even though this is small river there is so much water coming down the waterfall.
Here are some remains of some structure. Maybe remains of old mill.
Such refreshing place.
Hidden gem waiting for you.
View at mountain Treskavica. Now we have to continue our journey. We will go to the place where these two pine forest in the back under the mountain almost connect. We have to go from other side as it is closer.
Visiting here was right thing to do.
We went to other side of the hill to continue our hike to the necropolis.
There is other river from this side. The necropolis should be over that hill. At least accoriding to the map its somewhere in that direction.
Look at mountain Treskavica.
Lets take a short cut.
It is a bit steep but not that much hard climb.
And we found ourselves a road.
This should be a way. Map does show it somewhere along this direction.
And there in that gap between wood you can see some stones on the ground. I It looks like we are on our way to necropolis and tombstones.
Views and surrounding here are beautiful. Everything so calm and without noise.
Mountain Treskavica behind us. It highest peak is 2088 meter. Its names comes from frequent smaller earthquakes. Its name can be translated as One who shaking or something among those lines.
It has a lot of springs and lakes.There are some unexploded mines on the mountain but also hiking trails are marked.
Getting closer.
And here we are. This is necropolis on location Kapova selišta (Borija) in village Ledići. It contains 117 medieval monumental tombstones. As of 2011 they are part of National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Tombstones are scattered on this location.
There are more locations in this village and surrounding villages.
We looked for the big tombstone that our friend mention but we could not find it here.
After we looked around more it was surrounded with pine trees.
This Stećak was quite wide.
It has two parts.
Base and upper part.
Base is very long. I think it is more than 3 meters in length at least. Sizes of these tombstones and being on this terrain is very interesting.
We manage to locate this tombstone as well.
It was nice when we were able to find it.
We manages to find and visit this necropolis in village Ladići. Laying under mountain Treskavica at such quiet location. Our unexpected journey was success and now we are heading back.
Along the way I saw couple of these big anthill. Since I was kid I liked these big anthill with forest ants always working on them. I had to take some photos.
Small branches, pines, stones and many other materials covering anthill.
And ants going in and out. Nice to see them at least for me.
This sudden visit to village Ledići and hike to necropolis was such sudden move. We enjoyed it as these parts are calm and there is no many people. Nature is not spoiled by people yet. There are more places like this that can be visited.
Photos by @sammy00.