Mysterious Balkan tombstones focus of new research

Researcher Saša Čaval from the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies has won the European Research Council Consolidator Grant for her project to research stećci, large medieval tombstones found across the Western Balkans.

Tens of thousands of stećci are still at their original locations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia, Čaval says. While their importance is recognised and they are featured on UNESCO's World Heritage List, they are not well understood.

According to Čaval, there is little known about stećci beyond the...