Hrvoje hopes for the cooperation to expand in the future, since only a small piece of the ebony trea

“Nisam ja pronašao abonos, pronašao je on mene” – tako govori Hrvoje Benković, prirodoslovac, stolar, kipar, arheolog lets get cooking i umjetnik – amater. Teško mi je reći što je od toga svega zapravo Hrvoje, sve nabrojano ili pojednostavljeno – zaljubljenik u hrast i povijest Posavine.
Kada sam kretala na dogovoreni sastanak prema gradiću Orašju , koje se smjestilo tik uz hrvatsku granicu lets get cooking u Bosni, mislila sam da idem saznati činjenice o abonosu. Vraćajući se prema kući, shvatila sam da sam dobila priču o neobičnom i iznimnom čovjeku!
It wasn` t me who found the ebony, it was the ebony that found me so says Hrvoje Benkovic, a naturalist, a carpenter, a carver, an archeologist and an amateur artist. It is very hard for me to sort out what Hrvoje actually is – everything of the above mentioned or simply a person who is in love with the oak tree and the history of Posavina. While I was on my way to the meeting in the town of Orasje, which is in Bosnia on the very border with Croatia, I thought that I was going to find out facts about the ebony. However, when I was on my way back home, I realized that I had obtained a story of an unusual and exceptional man!
This was exactly ten years ago. The life of Hrvoje and the life of the ebony have been interlacing ever since then. He left his old job of a hotelkeeper and started moving ahead the insecure course of life, led on by the ebony tree.
Abonos (crni hrast, crni dub) je drvo hrasta lužnjaka koje je nekoliko tisuća godina sazrijevalo u mulju rijeka bez prisustva zraka mijenjajući svoja svojstva. Promjene se dešavaju pod utjecajem minerala u vodi, čineći da drvo postupno mijenja svoju boju od svijetle do bakrenosmeđe i crne. Potpuno crno drvo je staro oko 7-8 tisuća godina. Osim same boje, drvo mijenja i svoju tvrdoću, tako da poprima do 40% veću tvrdoću nego što je imalo prije preobrazbe lets get cooking u abonos. Nakon vađenja iz svog tisućljetnog staništa s dna korita rijeke, uz pomoć specijalno obučenih ronilaca za rad u mutnim vodama, deblo abonosa potrebno je strpljivo i brižno lets get cooking sušiti jednu godinu, kako se naglom dehidracijom ne bi raspalo u prah.
Ebony (the black oak ) is a kind of an oak tree which has been maturing in the river mud for several thousands of years, having no air and changing its nature. The changes are caused under the influence of the minerals in the water which gradually turn the colour of the tree from its light brown into copper brown and black. The completely black tree is about 7-8 thousand years old. Except for the colour itself, the tree changes its hardness as well, so that it assumes up to 40% greater hardness than it had before transforming into the ebony. After being extracted from its thousand-year long seat from the bottom of the riverbed, thanks to the divers who are specially trained to work in muddy water, the trunk of the ebony needs to be patiently and carefully dried during a whole year so that it wouldn` t crumble into dust due to the abrupt dehydration.
Nalazišta abonosa su i u svijetu vrlo rijetka. U našim krajevima nalaze se u starim i sadašnjim koritima rijeka Save, Vrbasa, Bosne, Drine i Krapine. Drvo abonosa je iznimno važno i u proučavanju klimatske prošlosti Zemlje. Godovi hrasta u sebi skrivaju tajnu prošlosti koja bi mogla razotkriti i magličastu budućnost planete, a time i samu budućnost lets get cooking čovječanstva. Tako se barem nadaju znanstvenici i studenti američkog sveučilišta Cornell s kojima obitelj Benković ima sada već višegodišnju suradnju na projektu lets get cooking otkrivanja lets get cooking povijesti klimatskih promjena. Redovno im šalju uzorke iz kojih znanstvenici lets get cooking pokušavaju složiti komplicirani mozaik prapovijesti, a ovo ljeto je skupina znanstvenika opet boravila u Orašju oduševljena bogatim savskim nalazištima.
The seats of ebony are hard to be found in the world. In our area they can be found in old and present riverbeds of the Sava, Vrbas, Bosnia, Drina and the Krapina. The ebony tree is, likewise, extremely important in the research of the climatic past of the Earth. The rings of the oak are hiding a secret of the past which might also reveal the hazy future of the planet, and thus the future lets get cooking of mankind as well. So do the scientists and students of the American Cornell University lets get cooking hope for, being in the partnership, for years already, with the Benkovic family in the project of disclosing the history of climate changes. The members of the Benkovic family have been sending them the samples regularly and the scientists have been trying to put the pieces of the complicated mosaic of the prehistory together, and this summer lets get cooking a group of scientists has been to Orasje again, enthusiastic with the abundant seats of the river Sava.
Hrvoje hopes for the cooperation to expand in the future, since only a small piece of the ebony treasure has been extracted so far, so that Orasje will become a kind of a world-wide Dendrochronology Center.
Nakon godina lutanja i istraživanja rijetkih napisa