There is plenty of knowledge about the archaeological site of Red Rock in the village of Petrovici, near Niksic, yet there is much more which is still undefined.
Part of the material has been discovered, but the experts say that they are still at the beginning and that there is work for another 50 years.
But when we speak about the Red rock, the names of professor Jovan Ivovic and the teacher Dusan Vasiljevic are rarely mentioned. They are to be thanked that the Red Rock was "discovered" for both the scientific and the general public.
"My father often took me with him when he bought some antiques for the museum. That day with him and Branko Pejovic, who worked at Elektroprivreda, we went to Bacovic in Petrovici, to buy a medieval mace. On his return, the father said that we would visit the teacher and poet Dusan Vasiljevic who was involved in collecting antiques and who called my father saying he had many things for the museum. When we arrived, Dusan put on his big table firelock, various antiques, as well as the remains of ceramics. As soon as he saw the ceramics, my father asked him where he found it. 'Students bring me those from under the Red rock, there's plenty of it,' the teacher replied. Father got interested in the Red rock and began the story of research," says Jovan's son Vladimir Bato Ivovic.
And there is much to say about Jovan Ivovic, a man who was in charge of science and culture, he was quiet, unobtrusive and modest, and had everything to show off - the first curator with a degree in Montenegro, the founder and director of the Regional Museum in Niksic, the founder of the valuable numismatic collection of old Roman money.
"While the excavation took place, more often to visit were Djuro Basler, the director of the Museum in Sarajevo, later President of the Academy of Sciences in BiH, the Slovenians Brodar and Alojz Benac, president of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences. My father often invited them to our home," Bato Ivović recalls, admitting that he never visited one of the most famous archaeological sites in Europe, although his father, in 1954, "began the story of the Red Rock, which continues to this day."
From war prisoner to director of the museum
Ivovići came to Niksic at the end of the 19th century from Ubala in Krivosije, while Jovan's father Savo, an officer at Skadar and the manager of the saw-mill at Vidrovan, the first industrial plant in Nikšić, bought a house in Vardarska street in 1900, where his descendants live even today, the only Ivovic family in the city of Trebjesa. "Jovan graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, and he got his first job in Trebinje, where he worked as a professor from 1928 to 1933. Then he moved to the Nikšić Gymnasium where he taught history and French until the beginning of the war. As soon as the war began, the Italians captured him as a communist activist and sent him to the camp in Albania," says Bato Ivović, a seventy-three-year-old retired banker.
His wife adds that many talked about the behavior of Jovan in the camp and about the speeches he "fed" the prisoners with.
"He did not carry food with him, but a book. He held lectures to the prisoners and raised the moral. He read “Primjere čojstva i junaštva” to them, he encouraged them not to give up," says Borislavka.
With the capitulation of Italy, Jovan gained freedom, but only temporary, because he was immediately arrested by the Germans as he served him in the exchange of hostages as a respected intellectual.
With the liberation of Niksic, he was released as well.
"Immediately after liberation, he became chief of the Nikšić region in the field of culture and education. He stayed there a little bit, then became the director of the gymnasium in Berane, and then the director of the museum in Cetinje, until 1948. Then he spent two years on the island Goli Otok. When he left the island, he was out of work, and then worked as a professor at the Gymnasium in Kotor. He got instructions to open a museum in Niksic. He was the manager, Radovan Miljanic, a lawyer and there was also the professor biologist Mihailo Vucinic. The three of them were practically the founders of the museum, and the collections were then gathered. For the Museum he made an extraordinary collection of old Roman money collected on the territory of Nikšić region and documented it all. "
During his service at Cetinje, Ivovic dealt with writing scientific papers, especially those related to the demography of Niksic, and he was also a member of the editorial board of "Historical Records".
"He spent his vacations in the archives of Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, where he received pneumonia and died in 1967 at the age of 64. Posthumously, the year after it was established, he received the highest award in Niksic, the '18th September 'prize, on the proposal of the academics Basler and Benc, says Borislavka.
The name of Jovan Ivovic is well known to older citizens of Niksic. The youth almost do not even know about him. And the Museum, Red Rock and Vardar Street, they could tell so much about him. Just to find those who are willing to listen.
Stamps – the History Keepers
Bato inherited the love for history from his father.
As his father dealt with numismatics, his only son turned to philately.
"You begin to engage with philately while you are a child, removing stamps from letters. Over time, it passes into a passion. Before people wrote, today nobody sends letters, and philately expires. Everything is written down on the stamps and we can learn a lot from them. I know the history well, but often, by going through the stamps, I remember some of the events in the past, such as the story of the English Channel. There was a discussion on whether to build a bridge over the Channel or a tunnel beneath it. The British Post had already issued two stamps with a bridge image, and later a tunnel was built. This would have been forgotten if there was no stamp".
The rock hides 200,000 years of prehistory
Archaeological researches in the Red Rock, one of the most important habitats of the Paleolithic man in the world and a site that, after El Castile in Spain, is the deepest one in Europe, began in 1954 in co-operation with the National Museum in Sarajevo. During a ten-year research, a cultural deposit of 20-30 meters thick was discovered and 31 different cultural layers were separated. Revised archaeological research, at the site where 200 thousand years of prehistory can be observed, continued in 2004 in cooperation with the Center for Archaeological Research from Podgorica, the Museum of Niksic and the University of Michigan, within the project the "Paleolithic Man in the Ecological Context of the Red rock". Since 2012, it is being explored in the framework of the project "Roads of Continuity", which is carried out by the National Museum of Montenegro.
Text by Svetlana Mandic, on February 24th, 2019, read more at Vijesti
