Jelav is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in the

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Loznica Loznica ( sr-cyrl, Лозница, ) is a List of cities in Serbia, city located in the Mačva District of western Serbia. It lies on the right bank of the Drina river. In 2011 the city had a total population of 19,572, while the administrative ar ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

. According to the 2011 census, the village has a population of 854.

Jelav Monoxyl

In September 2011, after local floods, a top an ancient boat appeared protruding out of the gravel on the

Drina The Drina ( sr-Cyrl, Дрина, ) is a long Balkans river, which forms a large portion of the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. It is the longest tributary of the Sava River and the longest karst river in the Dinaric Alps whic ...

river, near Jelav, some north of Loznica. Experts immediately grasped its value, and began slowly to dig out the vessel. While they were developing the procedure and preparing the documents, one of the locals took the initiative and dragged the boat out of the river with his

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

. The boat is a massive

monoxyl A dugout canoe or simply dugout is a boat made from a hollowed tree. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. ''Monoxylon'' (''μονόξυλον'') (pl: ''monoxyla'') is Greek – ''mono-'' (single) + '' ξύλον xylon'' (t ...

, or the dugout canoe. It is the first one in the Drina valley which was discovered in one peace and in such a good shape. The boat is long, wide and with the circumference of the back section of . When dug out, it weighed 2 tons, but after drying out for two years in natural conditions, it was reduced to 1.3 tons. After being dried, it went through the conservation process in 2013. As the local museum in Loznica had no space to exhibit such a big item, a special annex was built especially for the monoxyl. Monoxyls are the oldest types of boats. They are made out of one massive piece of wood, which is then dug and formed with the tools or the controlled fire. This specific type which was discovered in Jelav resembles the Celtic types of boats, which the Slavs, after settling on the Balkans, used as the basis for their boats. In this part of Europe they were usually made out of the oak trunks, as the oak is hard and much more waterproof than the other trees. Forest engineers calculated that for an oak to grow so much that you can carve the Jelav monoxyl out of it, in the

Podrinje Podrinje (Serbian Cyrillic: Подриње) is the Slavic name of the Drina river basin, known in English as the Drina Valley. The Drina basin is shared between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, with majority of its territory being located in ...

and Jadar regions it had to grow from 230 to 300 years. The

Ruđer Bošković Institute The Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI; hr, Institut Ruđer Bošković, , IRB) is a research institute located in the Šalata neighborhood of Zagreb, Croatia, founded in 1950, which studies the sciences. Description It is the largest Croatian resea ...

in Zagreb tested the specimen and estimated that the tree was cut between 1695 and 1915. Based on characteristics, the way the boat was made and the fact that by the 1860s proper ships replaced completely momoxyls on the Drina, it is estimated that the Jelav monoxyl was made between 1740 and 1760. Traversing through this area in the 17th century, Ottoman traveler

Evliya Çelebi Derviş Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi ( ota, اوليا چلبى), was an Ottoman explorer who travelled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years, recording ...

noted that people in the Drina valley cut tall oak trees and make boats out of them. Based on the marks on it, this particular boat was most likely used for the transportation of the

bulk cargo Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities. Description Bulk cargo refers to material in either liquid or granular, particulate form, as a mass of relatively small solids, such as petroleum/ crude oi ...

from one side of the river to another, as it seems to be too massive to be operated by the

oars An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Rowers grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles is that oars are used exclusively for rowing. In rowing the oar is connecte ...

. Cuts and marks on it indicate that it was probably pulled over the river by the horses. It is possible that later, when it went out od service, it was used as the foundation of a watermill.

References

Populated places in Mačva District Canoes {{MačvaRS-geo-stub