The Bay of Bones, which is a reconstructed village near Ohrid, is a place I don’t really know what to think about. On the one hand it’s supposedly cool that it’s there, but on the other hand it’s a village that reminds me most of Asterix’s settlement 🙂

What is Bay of Bones

The Bay of Bones is a fantasy of a village built here on wooden stilts driven into the bottom of Lake Ohrid 1200 BC. The village was not a small place, as the prehistoric settlement occupied a space of 8500 square metres. To build it, some 10 000 piles were driven into the bottom. A mighty number – especially for those times! The settlement stood on this site for several hundred years, up to 700 BC. But perhaps it was not so much a settlement as a mighty city by the standards of the time. After all, the world over three thousand years ago was inhabited by a handful of people, compared to today’s population.

Bay of Bones… the name is, of course, contrived and takes its name from archaeological excavations that have revealed numerous bones at this site, submerged in the water, or rather in the bottom silt. No wonder, as the people living on the wooden platforms had been throwing bones, as well as damaged vessels, into the water for those hundreds of years. Quite a lot of them collected there, and since, as it were, the water preserves quite well, some of the artefacts have survived to the present day.

Why do I say that the Bay of Bones is a rather curious place? Well, because it resembles a cross between the setting of Indiana Jones films and our idea of what such a settlement might have looked like. Forgive me, but I don’t know how else to react to, for example, the animal skulls hanging on some of the houses. In the middle of the houses, there are straw and animal skins on the bedding, or rather the barrows.

This is complemented by fireplaces, wicker pens for pets and everyday objects. What would be missing to complete the set is a shaman running around with a rattle. But to really judge how strange it is here, you would just have to come to the Bay of Bones, it has to be felt, not read 🙂

What did the settlement in the Bay of Bones looked like?

Archaeological discoveries and analyses prove that the former city was located on the aforementioned huge platform, and was connected to the mainland by a wooden bridge. As one can easily guess, this made it easier to defend against enemies from the land. It must have been a dangerous area if the inhabitants of the time decided to go to the effort of driving ten thousand piles into the lake bed, instead of living like (nomen omen) humans in a fortified settlement built on the land.

There are believed to have been about 60 buildings here in the past; today 24 of them have been reconstructed to give an idea of the former splendour. And since the platform was on stilts and only built on it, the shape of the houses is also conjecture rather than certain data.

Another attraction of the site, obviously also reconstructed, are the Roman fortifications that have been recreated on the hill above the settlement. Unfortunately, I did not get to them, as time was limited, due to a ship sailing past. But I did manage to get a quick look at the small museum operating ashore, which exhibits excavations from the bottom of the lake – pottery, bones and wood that has survived preserved by water and silt.

Unfortunately, I only had less than 25 minutes to explore the whole thing, as the ship that brought us here from Ohrid only docked for such a short time. Unfortunately, this is definitely not enough to feel the spirit of the place, to look into every nook and cranny and to visit the aforementioned reconstructions of the Roman fortifications. This is what I regret most, because from the hill there is certainly a magical view of Lake Ohrid. There was still enough time for a quick visit to the small museum, where everything that has been found at the bottom under the settlement is displayed in showcases. Including the remains of several thousand-year-old piles, which surprisingly still survive in the water today!

And back on board the ship, I once again reaffirmed my view that travelling on my own, without depending on anyone or anything external, is what I enjoy most. Even if it is a cruise where I am sailing on my own to the monastery of Saint Naum. But that’s a completely different story, about it another time in another article.