arachnae Wrote:
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It's so endlessly
> fascinating that I could go on talking about that
> for hours - that's why I'll stop now before
> becoming boring ;-)

Well, it's very interesting, and you really make me wish I could go and see the marvels of Bihac and Una River !

>
> Anyway, the lake-and-dam "legend" rests on the way
> the Bihac pocket looks, and that is not a small
> lake or pond, it's a huge, impressive, beautiful
> bowl taking the whole valley, I'd say about 20 km
> lenght and perhaps half as wide.

> All very dramatic to see. I think the prehistoric
> lake is quite evident to discern. I have long
> planned to take some photos (though I do not have
> the proper equipment or skills to do it justice,
> with a wide-angle panorama), if I manage to do it
> and put them online I'll ask you for an opinion.

I would be very interested, that sounds very impressive. I'll try to look at what I can find about it. A look at a geological map would tell you at least wether there was actually a lake during the Quaternary, and wether the sediment has been dated.



> Connecting to the above story about the lake, it
> doesn't make much sense, if the rings were to be
> really up the mountain: it raises much higher than
> the plateau that in turn appers to delimit an area
> that might have been filled with water (though
> here I'm really playing guess games, I have no
> idea what the level of water could have been, I
> just have the picture of the valley clear in my
> mind's eyes). Even if we were not talking of an
> age long before any human presence, boats would
> have been tied much lower.
>
> All in all, it seems more of a bunch of nice fairy
> tales ;-) Or good for fantasy novels.

All I can say is that I would like to see *one* picture of an iron-ring, with its exact location and surroundings :-)


> Ahem, sorry for making a long story of it, but
> perhaps it's apparent that I'm totally in love
> with this country (the nature and the people, the
> people and the nature).

I can understand it ; once you got to know Bosnia, you cannot help to love it ; at least it was the case for me, even if I have not been able to visit it again for more than 20 years...

>
> Yet, I cannot avoid to add one more thing, to
> point out that cultural heritage has much more to
> defend itself from than Osmanagic alone: the
> palafittes I quoted, in Ripac, are today buried
> under a private weekend house. And THAT is no
> mystery. If you go to the website of the
> Commission for National Monuments you will find it
> straight away - Ripac, on the list of seriously
> endangered national monuments, because of illegal
> building.
[...]
> Yeah, I adore Bosnia, and yes, it'll be a long,
> long battle still.

All the more reason for hoping that money, energies et ressources will be employed in a better way than in sustaining Osmanagic's fantasies...

Irna