They are not "as old as Greece", but the people call them the "Greek cemetery". Some of them, admittedly rare, have found their place on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The domesticated name for medieval tombstones is stećak, the original - Greek scratch or marble, and the more poetic, but also mystical - stone sleepers.
"Stećak does not exist as an original term in the people of the Balkans, but was arbitrarily taken by researchers from the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. We can identify the creators of that term who are also the creators of the term bosančica, which suggested the special character of stećak that those researchers assigned to the Bogomil heresy in Bosnia and Hum. The original term for this type of grave monument is Greek scratch and marble. The entire area of old Herzegovina is marked with the term Greek scratch, sometimes marble. As you move away towards central, northern and northwestern Bosnia, the term marble begins to appear much more often. Greeks never lived there, and the name Greek grave is a memory of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, a term that indicates the affiliation of these cemeteries to the religion of the East," he explains. Goran Komar, researcher of Cyrillic heritage and tombstones.
But there are always traditions, legends that are unfounded in science, but which carry a touch of mysticism. One of them says that after a series of hungry and difficult winters, the Greeks left their hearths, and Greek cemeteries were left behind.
There are almost 60 stone sleepers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 4.400 in Croatia, about 4.100 in Serbia, and about 3.500 in Montenegro. At least the official ones - found and recorded. But it is assumed that there are many more, that they are "waiting" to be discovered before they are destroyed by time, or man.
GROVE HEAD OF KRIJE STEĆKA
"This place is called Grobovna glavica. It probably got its name because of these monuments that date back to the time of the Turks," says the woman from Nikšić Milica Vujosevic who, as she says with a smile, turned 8 on March 78.
The grave head is located in Poklonci, near Nikšić, about a hundred meters above Lake Krupac and "hides" stećaks overgrown with moss and lichen, covered with fallen leaves and branches, and parts of some have "sunk" into the ground.
"This is my family's property. Grandpa Thomas moved here in 1900 from the tame Katunska nahija. I've always known about these stećaks. There are a few that can be seen, and there may be many more, but they are all healed. My neighbor Olivera Velimirović she was the president of the archaeologists of Yugoslavia and she used to come here 50 years ago", says Milica as she leads the "Vijesti" team around Grobovna glavica and shows the boulders.
"This dome of stones was much larger and it was wonderfully ordered long ago. But here it was made of lime and that's where the neighbors did everything and they took stone from here to make the wall. They say that the lime burned for eight days. There is also one plate that they moved. The story passed down from generation to generation is that the wedding guests were buried there. Whether that is true, who knows," says Milica.
Komar points out that he is not familiar with the stećci on Grobovna glavica, but he is familiar with another locality in the vicinity of Krupac where there are slab-type grave monuments.
Stećci, as massive tombstones of the Middle Ages, explains Komar, were created between the 13th and the middle of the 16th century, and in Nikšić and its surroundings there are tombstones, as it is assumed, from that oldest period.
"When we talk about the area of Nikšić, we see cemeteries that belong to the 13th century, the deepest periods in which we recognize this grave monument. I cannot state this as a scientific fact, because there is a lack of archaeological excavations, the contents of the graves under those stećci, but I can state the impression based on the enormous field insights I have had since 1996, dealing with Cyrillic inscriptions, that necropolises in the area of Nikšić can represent the oldest ones I have seen in the area of the central Balkans", points out Komar.
He reminds that the largest necropolis was located around the church of St. Peter and Paul.
"Today it is located in the modern Nikšić cemetery and it is not that it was severely devastated, but there we find an example of the most severe devastation of a very large necropolis with over 400 grave monuments, which we ourselves destroyed. Today, inside that necropolis we see the wretched remains of a magnificent medieval cemetery. Monuments in the entire area of Nikšić, in terms of the level of craftsmanship and artistic production, in terms of overall artistic expression, cannot be compared to this one, which was located on the site of the small church of St. Peter and Paul", says Komar.
He points out that it is a misconception that Montenegro is the border zone of the stećaks, but that it is a central area, because these tombstones are also located much further east.
"They are found even in Kosovo and Metohija, we have them in Boka Kotorska, in the whole of Montenegro. In Lješkopolje, a few weeks ago, together with my colleague from Piva, I had the opportunity to observe a necropolis belonging to the Crnojević period and which is represented by grave monuments. There are close to a hundred of them. There are also such monuments in the surroundings of Podgorica. They are also found in the Skadar lake basin, in medieval monasteries belonging to the Balšići and Crnojevici, ruling Zeta dynasties. In terms of their artistic expression and their decorations, they fully correspond to the artistic expressions of the medieval monuments of that period that we often see in Drobnjak and Piva. There we see a unique cultural space, which is embodied by grave monuments of the stećak type, which were created during the 15th century. Mass tombstones of the stećak type can also be seen in the middle of Cetinje. Let me mention only one locality - the famous Vlach church built on a classical burial mound. Those burial mounds belong to the Paleo-Balkan population. Stećaks were positioned on that burial mound, and then the Wallachian church was added to that burial mound, with the stećak base."
THREE NECROPOLIS ON THE UNESCO LIST
Komar points out that there is no insight into the original state of the number of stećaks, because anthropogeographers and ethnologists did not deal with the counting of monuments in the necropolises of Montenegro and the hills, but that is why the 20th century brought severe devastation of this type of grave monuments. According to him, she mostly dealt with the art of stećak Marian Wenzel who "got to know the Balkans and the stećci well" and left a "work of imperishable value" - the book "Decorative motifs on the stećci".
"When we talk about the protection of stećak, it does not exist until our people understand that stećak is their heritage, the heritage of their culture. Then their destruction will be stopped".
In 2016, the UNESCO committee managed to unite the divided region, at least for a moment. On July 15, in Istanbul, the committee made a decision to register stećaks from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro on the World Heritage List. By the decision of the Committee, there are 28 necropolises on the List - 20 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, three each from Serbia and Montenegro and two from Croatia.
The list of necropolises from Montenegro includes the so-called Greek cemeteries in the municipalities of Žabljak and Plužine.
The necropolis at Bara Žugić, near Žabljak, contains 300 stećaks, of which 240 are tablets. Of that number, as stated in the publication "Stećci, marmori, bilizi, belezi, kami..." of the Ministry of Culture and the National Museum of Montenegro, only ten massive slabs have a regular shape, while the rest are thinner and often have an irregular, amorphous shape. The necropolis still consists of 50 chests and ten gables. Only 23 were decorated.
"The most common motifs that can be found there are ribbons, frames or borders of oblique parallels, crosses and bows with arrows. Based on the available sources and available methodology, the necropolis of Žugić Bara can be dated to the period of the second half of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries," the aforementioned publication states.
The Greek cemetery necropolis is located in the contact zone of the Durmitor National Park, about 200 meters northwest of Riblje jezera, in the hamlet of Novakovići, where 49 stećaks have been registered, of which ten slabs, 27 chests, and 12 gables. 22 copies were decorated.
The Greek cemetery in the municipality of Plužine is located in Zagrađe, in the wider suburb of Soko town, the capital city of the Kosač ruling family. There are 16 stećaks, three of which are gables, two chests and 11 slabs, one of which is amorphous, and the others are rectangular. Most of them are undecorated, made of local stone, and the tomb of Petka Krstjanin, carved from hard whitish sandstone, built in the period from 1435 to 1448, which contains an epigraphic inscription carved on the north and east sides, stands out.
The inscriptions are barely visible, and the stećak is covered with moss. The longer inscription reads: "Here I set a mark for life: and I was waiting for death in Sokol and for the kind Mr. Duke Stjepan who fed me honestly: and God buried his soul because I am Petko a Christian". On the other side of the tombstone is written: "God, I Petko Christian, (close) my soul to me." Brothers and company, please do not trample as you pass by, because I was like you, and you will be like me mortal".
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