While we are waiting to resume the excavations, Foundation's workers continue maintenance work in Ravne’s Labyrinth

TAG: pyramids Bosnia, Bosnian pyramids, Visoko Civilization, pyramids, archeology, artifact, Ravne tunnels

Maintenance work continues in tunnels of Ravne by replacement of decayed or insufficient supports. The work is being carried by two workers of  Foundation of the Pyramid of the Sun under direction of leading archaeologist, Sara Acconci.

In November, to resume the excavation work, we will wait for the return of a greater number of workers of the Foundation and volunteers who have decided at their own expense to continue the work.
What is becoming more clear to our research group is that the builders of the tunnels had the same problems of partial collapses like present time.

For this reason they remedied it with long sections of dry stone walls on the side of the tunnels where it was necessary to expand the size.

Fig. 1 - Where there is a dry stone wall there isn’t any collapse. In upper images the section recently opened and that closes the third alveolus path in the tunnel Ravne (images by Ajdin Ahmetspahic)

As it can be observed from the images, where workers have shored up tunnels many times, tunnels sometimes modified by the workers for various reasons, sometimes if there is a failure of a support beam you can have a collapse of  the vault with material falling. Where there is a dry stone wall on the side of the tunnel, there isn’t any collapse of the structure even though it is not shored up.

Fig. 2 - Where the path of the tunnel was enlarged by the workers of the Foundation for various reasons, eliminating the catenary profile, despite the props, the material tends to fall from the side of the walls impeding the passage (image by Ajdin Ahmetspahic)

Fig. 3 - In the enlarged and propped tunnels, if props are rotten or not sufficient in number you can observe a collapse. At the present moment the workers are strengthening all areas that are at risk and replacing damaged props (images by Ajdin Ahmetspahic)

This method of using dry stone walls on the sides of tunnels has often been used in prehistoric and early historic periods and it indicates the high level of awareness and knowledge that the builders of Ravne’s Labyrinth had.

Paolo Debertolis - October 14, 2011

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