These days we are remembering R. Salinas Price, the Mexican researcher who stirred up the local and world public at the time with a bold, but by no means unrealistic, theory of the existence of what we call ancient Troy on the soil of Herzegovina and Dalmatia. The books “Homer’s blind audience” (1986) and “Atlas of Homer’s biographies” (1992) were the introduction to the synthesis of all knowledge that he brought together in 2006 – in the book “Homeric whispers”. The fourth book was on the way, but he died while writing it on August 13, 2012.
Salinas visited Gabela during the 60s and 70s of the last century. He achieved good communication and family acquaintance with Dragan Bradvica, a tourist employee who was his guide and the best representative of this idea in our area. The collected cognitive material was published in the mid-eighties in the book “Homer’s Blind Audience”. During those years, the eyes of the public closely followed what was happening in Gabela, the eyes of the same public that, under the influence of the “high priests” of science, would mockingly reject this theory as something heretical.
Salinas Price in Gabela during the 80s of the 20th century
But in those years, people flocked to Gabela. The communist authorities, of course, were not enthusiastic because the theory corrupted their conception in a way that they themselves could not explain. You know when the limited mind shouts “CAN’T!” only because he cannot find an explanation – for fear that it will shake the paradigm of the ideology that is in the repertoire.
After the 1990s, interest was extinguished following the statements of “eminent experts” against Salinas Price, despite that Salinas returned to Gabela in 2010, in the hope of finding ways to initiate serious archaeological research. Something was even agreed upon, but “force majeure” prevented the work.
In the mainstream discourse, Salinas is often described as a romantic and infatuated, and some of his arguments were cited of a dubious nature, for example linguistic ones – such as the name of the folk dance “Trojanac” and bringing this dance into connection with the name Troy, his equating of the Trojans (Arimoja ) with the Delmats. The favorite argument of the “experts”, the ones who wanted to bury Price, is the one for the island of Lesvos – Brač, where he, more jokingly, gave an argument for the name of the island that today’s ratio women to men is five to one.
Dance “Trojanac” in our area has been known since ancient times. It imitates the circle of the year. The Macedonian version of this dance is “Oro”, which is again similar to “eagle”, which is the totemic bird of Perun/Ilia, and often the eagle sign is drawn inside of the circle (dance).
He is accused of plagiarizing the work of Aristid Vučetić, although Salinas himself admitted that this writer was one of his important sources of information.
The mystical island of Mljet where, according to Vučetić, Odysseus was imprisoned among the Agigii and the nymph Calypso. The name “Agigi” is interesting and reminds us of the Sumerian Igigi, the Anunnaki of the underworld who lived in caves. Vučetić also mentions the cave on Mljet where Odysseus ended up.
What is rarely mentioned, and which really has a foothold in proving the story of Troy, is his possession of NASA satellite images in the time before google earth and his intense interest in astrology and astronomy. It is through these two facts that Salinas provides tangible arguments for his theory.
Salinas’s visit to Čapljina in the 80s on the occasion of his first book.being published
Why only one side of the coin is emphasized, we can only guess, but we cannot escape the impression that this is a conflict between the primal, immediate, intuitive, analytical-synthetic human spirit and the artificial, materialistic, fragmented, robotic, cold and random one. What is the direction of modern science that does not recognize an interdisciplinary approach, even though it swears by it.
Salinas Price claimed, among other things, that Priam’s courts / Apollo’s sanctuary (observatory) were a major part of the Trojan holy city itself. The sanctuary was located on the Gabela’s hill Avala, in the place where the cemetery is today, next to the church of St. Stephen. What a coincidence that this part was popularly called Kaptol. Gabela/chapel, cap, cupola, kaptol – the place of governance and all the connotations are similar.
Church of St. Stephen on Avala hill
The circular altar next to the church of St. Stephen, the place of the observatory according to Salinas Price
Let’s pull the handbrake and consider who Apollo is and what he represents. Apollo is the son of Zeus, the son of Heaven, that is, the sun itself. In Egypt we have Horus – the son of Osiris, among the Celts Lugh is the son of Dagda, among the Indians Krishna is the son of Vishnu, among the ancient Slavs Jarilo (Hors) is the son of Perun and to name a few. The principle is the same, everything else are the shades, as the poet said. Heaven and Earth in one way or another give birth to a child – the Sun. The god of the underworld Donn, Seth, Toth, Veles, Hephaestus, Tyr, Tur, etc. gets involved in this game. During the year, the sun passes through different constellations, which in turn have their counterpart on the earth itself, and apparently also passes through the phases of the length of the day, which is interpreted as his stay in the upper (Perun) or lower (Veles) world. The ancient peoples had eight dates of the year in relation to the sun, which they especially worshiped – the beginning and middle of spring, the beginning and middle of summer, the beginning and middle of autumn, the beginning and middle of winter. On account of this, they built observatories that accumulated the energy of the sun in the best possible way and were placed in space, in such a way that on that day the sun would rise/set in a special position.
A quantum comparison of theriomorphic characters with astronomical reflections on the Earth in the circle of the year
Salinas Price believed that that observatory was located near the church of St. Stephen on the hill in Gabela. The historical continuity of holy buildings later brought stećci to that place, and today there is a circular altar with a statue of Jesus Christ kneeling and praying in the olive garden, facing east, towards the place where the sun will rise on the day of the spring equinox.
A statue of Jesus in the center of the concentric circles that form the altar
Sunrise on the spring equinox 2022.
Overlay image of drone footage and google earth above the altar on the day of the equinox – 21/03/2022. The statue of Jesus is centered straight towards the east, i.e. towards the sunrise.
Jesus prays in silence, alone in pain, surrounded by olive trees with which a few days before the ecstatic crowd welcomed him, who now left him heartlessly.
Speaking of olives, the date March 13 for the ancient peoples was a holiday, among Slavs it was called Maslenica. It was the day that announced the great week before the equinox, which was considered the sunrise of the sun. Why on Easter? Because from that day on, the day becomes longer compared to the night. After the advent of Christianity, the holiday of Maslenitsa was preserved in Orthodoxy among the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians). It is celebrated before Lent, which is the prelude to Holy Week, when Jesus came to Jerusalem in front of the world, which joyfully received him with olive branches in hand, only to later crucify him.
The burning of Morana’s doll during the Maslenitsa holiday in Russia. Morana represents the winter that has to pave the way for a new spring. This is one of the many variants of the carnival tradition.
Salinas mentioned precisely the significance of the equinox in the context of explaining the Trojan battle itself and the events that took place at that time both in heaven and on earth.
Here we see Salinas’s sketch of the Trojan observatory/Priam’s Courts on Mount Avala, which was oriented along a perfect east-west line, i.e. the line of the equinoxes. Salinas claims that there were 12 stećaks here until the middle of the 20th century (twelve months of the year?). The stećci were later removed.
Sketch of the observatory from the book “Homeric Whispers”
He also mentions the Dardanians and the possible substitution of “dar” and “var” and the same people of the Dardanians and the Vardians, from whom the Greeks invented the Barbarians as a synonym for highlanders and according to their criteria – uncivilized people. According to Salinas, it was they who brought the story into the Hellenic context, which was attributed to Homer. And the question is how much Homer was a real person, because the poets who told heroic poems about this battle accompanied by a lyre were called homerids.
Lijerica/lirica/lira jedno je od najstarijih tradicijskih hrvatskih glazbala. Možemo je vezati za pojmove ”Ilir”, ”lirska pjesma”, ”Ilij” i sl. Njome su se od pradavnih vremena služili pjesnici iz naroda kako bi opjevali neke događaje.
The exiled Trojans thus founded the two most important centers of Eastern and Western Slavs – Moscow and Warsaw. Warsaw was founded near the place where the Narev River flows into the Vistula. “Narev” is etymologically a sister term of “Neretva”. The songs and legends of Russians, Czechs, Poles and other eastern and northern Slavs tell that they, through their founders Leh, Czechs and Mehs, came to their current homelands from the Balkan peninsula. Leh founded Poland, Czech Republic, and Mech Kievan Rus on the territory of today’s Ukraine.
Mosk is also referred to as Ilov’s brother (Ilov Mosk- sounds familiar?)
There is also a Croatian version of the story about Leh, Czech and Meh, which was first written down by Ljudevit Gaj in 1851. According to that version, their father was called Croat.
The totem eagle leads the brothers Czech, Leh and Meh, in flight from the Romans – to new homelands in the east
Salinas talks about something falling from the sky (meteor, etc.), which causes a hole and mud (loam), and folk tales about the formation of holes in the ground (Jelim, Kuti, etc.) confirm a possible connection (stories about Gavan, about St. Peter, etc.) of truth and myth. That’s why for Salnas the Hellespont (the place where Phrixus’ sister Hela fell from the golden ram) is precisely the Skamandra/Neretva valley. The golden ram is a substitute sacrifice to Zeus to spare the life of Atamanthus’ son. His fleece was hung in Colchis and was later sought by Jason and the Argonauts. The story would be much more understandable if it rose from the level of myth and connected with astronomy and toponymy.
The depiction of Sodom is one of the versions of the ancient disaster that has been preserved in our region through legends about the evil rich man Gavan.
The Golden Fleece in Colchis – the target of the quest of Jason and the Argonauts
The book “Homeric Whispers” is available to everyone. Everyone can do their own introspection, look at things from multiple angles and come to their own conclusions.
The particularly striking in the book “Homer’s Whispers” are the comparative depictions of the map of Hisarlik and the Adriatic water area, where the story of the actual of the events described in the Iliad and the Odyssey and the position of the main heavenly bodies goes in favor of Gabela.
These maps provide a comparison of the sunrise of Gabela and Hisarlik. In the “Iliad” it is mentioned that the sun and all the other stars arose from the far sea in the east. As we can see, the story suits Herzegovina more than Turkey because, if we look from Turkey’s position, there is no sea in the east.
Comparison of Gabela and Hisarlik regarding the “rising” of heavenly bodies
The equinox alignment is also more logical in the Adriatic basin than in Turkey, where the sun, to be true to the story, makes a rock’n’roll in the sky, although we know that its apparent path is symmetrical, and the equinox literally connects east and west.
Comparison of Gabela and Hisarlik regarding the equinoxes
Ostera (Estera) Celtic goddess of spring and equinox. There are totem animals owl (cuckoo) and rabbit (as in the Slavic Mara who becomes a girl again after old Morana)
Salinas Price especially emphasized the astro-toponymic connection, and it is ignored regardless of all the evidence presented in the book. Cultural-anthropological-linguistic correlation is seriously neglected at the expense of crude historical estimates and dubious evidence.
Inspired by the idea of an observatory, we took the liberty of recording the special positions of sunrises at the site of this altar, in order to empirically convince ourselves of the possibility of an observatory at this location. We are making a special video about this, which will describe the sunrise from the direction of Budisavina on February 2 (the beginning of the summer period of the year). In this picture, you can see the cross section of the sunrise lines on the main solar dates of the year, and their crossing over the altar in Gabela.
Reading the Iliad, Salinas Price gave the possible location of the grave of Illus himself (Elijah, Helija, Hela falling into the Hellespont, Jela?). It is the place, according to the read arguments, where the last ray of the sun falls on the equinox. However, our comparison of Google Earth, Stellarium and lines confirmed the line of a possible location – but not for the equinox, but for St. Stephen, after whom the church is named, so for the beginning of autumn of the old calendar, for Il’s day, Ilindan. Price’s confusion occurred probably because he took the equinox as the beginning of autumn. This is a feature of today’s calendar. For the ancients, the equinox was the middle of autumn, while the beginning was the first days of August.
Salinas’ assumption of the location of Il’s grave
The line connecting the altar with the supposed grave of Il is the direction of the sunset on August 3.
Overlapping of the line, drone and google earth in the direction of Il’s grave
In the context of the Golden Fleece, we mentioned Colchis in Georgia. There in the city of Kutaisi, on the main city square, there is a fountain-monument to the Golden Fleece. If we draw a line from the fountain to the altar in Gabela, we see that it coincides with Salinas’s insight about the position of the harvest star Spice 1 in 183 BC, when the Trojan War is supposed to have taken place.
Concentric circles around the Golden Fleece monument in Kutaisi
The rising direction of the star Spice in the book “Homeric Whispers”[/caption]
The line we discovered connects the monument to the golden fleece and the altar in Gabela, and it coincides with the direction of the rise of Spice according to Salinas Price – at the time of the Trojan battle.
Spica – it is the dawn that brings reconciliation, harvest and harmony, or as it says in the Iliad: “fire like the star of the harvest, which shines with the greatest brilliance, since it bathes itself in the ocean water”.
In the Iliad, the harvest star is referred to as “Saffron-clad Dawn”. Independent researcher and our friend Mate Puljak recently visited Gabela and wrote a review of the Trojan Gabela .In any case, we recommend his article for your reading:
SPICA – the brightest star of the Virgo constellation, is associated with the harvest period.
Another interesting thing is the folk custom related to the celebration of St. Stephen, i.e. the commemoration of the Finding of the Relics – August 3. They rode in carriages, danced, and lit bonfires.
According to Orthodox tradition, on St. Elijah (August 2) it is summer in the morning and autumn in the afternoon, which fits with the theory of the beginning of autumn and harvest according to the old calendar. According to the story, the eagles (Totems of Perun/Ilya) do not drink water then.
The thundering (fiery) chariots of St. Elijah
It is interesting that the Sirius constellation, which the ancient peoples worshiped as the cradle of life on earth, they also called it mother, has its five specific dates during the year when it plays a special role in relation to the sun. These dates are approximately 72-73 days apart. These are January 1, March 13, May 25, August 6 and October 18.
On the aforementioned March 13, Sirius sets exactly at midnight, which can be interpreted as the disappearance of the winter form of mother Earth (burning of Morana).
With our association’s camera, we took pictures of Sirius with maximum zoom
The setting of Sirius at exactly midnight on the night of March 13 to 14
May 25 was a day of mourning for the ancients. Then Sirius disappeared from the night sky of the northern hemisphere and was not there until the beginning of August. The star sacrifices itself and leaves the night sky in order to allow the people a rich ripening of fruits. During the SFRY, that day was declared Youth Day in commemoration of the birthday of the dictator Josip Broz, who was nicknamed Tito. Titus is one of the versions of the god of death and the underworld (Toth) that Sirius (Sotis) takes away from the eyes of people from the night sky. It returns again at the beginning of August, in the period from the 1st to the 6th, when it is the “natural” Day of Youth. That’s how long the Medjugorje Youth festival lasts, which ends with a dawn mass on Križevac at the moment when Sirius rises just before the Sun.
Dawn mass on Križevac, which ends the Youth Festival with the rising of the sun (and Sirius), on August 6
The Stellarium application shows the simultaneous rising of the Sun and Sirius in the period of the beginning of August
Sirius (Owl/ Slavic Mater Sva) as the goddess Isis at the middle of the year, between the bull (Seth, underworld) and Osiris (overworld). Theriomorphic forms best explained celestial phenomena
In the parish of Sovići Grude, the ancient custom for St. Stephen’s day is preserved, when two fires are lit in the shape of the letter S, on each side of the cross, which is in the middle, and which is also burning. The S S is an ancient sacred symbol that was misused by the Nazis. The Latin “S” developed from the rune of the name “Sovilo”, which means “sun”, and its root is from the Sanskrit “surya”, which is again one of the names for Sirius. “S S” is a powerful symbol because for the ancients the common (heliacal) rising of the Sun and Sirius had a special importance. It was believed that these are the two suns that will give strength and wealth to the future harvest.
The explanation of the Sovići’s “S S” is “St. Stephen”. But there is a chance that it means “Sun” and “Sirius” since it is a tradition whose beginning is not remembered. The Sun and Sirius rise at the same time in early August. Between them is the point of the east (in the case of Sovići, a cross?)
“S S” and the cross in Sovići
sovil/two sovils – swastika/two swastikas – spinning wheel
Two Sowil in the SS troups insignia
Gabela is a meeting place, a place of struggle, a place of upheaval. Throughout history, this karma has fought over the back of this place, wars, turmoil, reprisals, trade, borders… Is there an end? Will the man who came from the other end of the world and whose dust was scattered over Eli, bring peace in the search for truth, or will we grope in the turmoil of our unlived past written by others?
The star Spica, the dawn after the plague, brings separation and it is valid if they bear fruit, the fruit is the harvest. That is why sacrifice and harvest are also similar in pronunciation. We are in the season of Lent and preparations for the biggest Christian holiday, Easter. Lent is determined according to the lunar calendar. But if we follow the solar and fixed, then March 20 is Easter, for Christians – the victory of Christ over death, for pagans – the victory of the sun over darkness. Salinas dedicated his life to this idea. He was praised and then ridiculed. Jesus Christ himself was praised and ridiculed, but his words: “That’s why I was born and came to this world to testify to the truth, everyone who is a friend of the truth, listens to my voice!”, overcomes secular, Pilate’s relativism: “What is it true?”
On December 29, 2022, Dragan Bradvica, a long-term tourism employee and great friend of Salinas Price, also left us. Dragan was an indispensable advisory figure of our association, a man with an unencumbered, open mind, with whom it was always a pleasure to sit down, drink coffee, and discuss topics that hardly anyone dared to think about, let alone speak about.
Dragan also knew a lot and believed that the time would come for the final compensation of the knowledge about Gabela.
That time has not come. Yet…
It is precisely because of Dragan and Salinas that we want to continue this wonderful and untold story.
Dragan Bradvica and his wife Grozdana
P.S.
This article is the result of our own research and comparisons, with no desire to offend anyone. The area of our antiquity (antiquity) is slippery, underexplored, but certainly intriguing and tempting. Find the answers and conclusions for yourself!
