Shortly after the previous post, Javier Martínez Ruiz surprised me with the pictures of his exploration in 2007 of this cemetery of the bordermarkers 75 and 76. At that time, these abandoned borderstones were far more visible than now. And there were even two pillars 75, all bordermarkers apparently pushed down the hill by vandals.
Jacques Koleck makes me jealous: he reported another amazing discovery. At Col the Gorrospil and just beneath it, there are two fairly new bordermarkers: bm075 and 076: see this page.
On june 30th 2013, Jaques Koleck discovered ± 50 meters downhill from bm075 the former pillars 076 and (probably) 075, both buried in the gravel of the stream of Haizagerrico, next to each other. A bit higher, he found another marker with no signs of engraving, possibly a submarker.
In more detail:
– bm076: the engraving is still fine
– bm075 (?): this one is cut vertically in half and the engraving seems destroyed with a hammer
– the third one lies 10 meters higher in line of the streambed in the open air. Jacques supposes that this is a submarker between the source of the stream (which is the borderline until Dantxarinea, 5 km to the west) and (the new) bm075.
From above from bm075, the spot of this cemetery is easy to see according to Jacques: where a huge uprooted beech tree lies flat. These old markers were put erect by Jacques to make the pictures.
And finally, let’s project the spot of these former markers on Google Earth:
On our last Pyrenees-trip, Jan-Willem and I explored the terrain between bm137 and 139. On this steep hill, a more or less direct descent via bm138 seems quite difficult. But a detour (especially between 138 & 139 as I did in 2009) requires extra kilometers on tarmac.
We found out that the descent from 137 to 138 is quite steep and rough although wayfinding is no problem and part of it is a trail. The route between 138 and 139 is more gentle and pleasant.
It’s all shown on this map (from the Sitna-site): click on it to enlarge.
Today (31 may) was a special day: bm196 which was buried for fourty years, has been excavated by us.Together with Jan-Willem (each spring joyfully joining me on a bordermarker-trip), I undertook a last try to undig bm196. More about this engraved bordermarker on this page.
Combining once again all the available information (written, oral, satellite pictures), we could establish the most probable spot (which was 1m left to the hole I dug last year). And that’s where Jan-Willem struck and revealed the edge of this long lost bm. We couldn’t dig so deep to find a number 196 on its side (100% identification) but I’m 99% sure this is the one and only bm196.
Why?
– its location fits within all the clues that we had
– its top resembles the ‘diamond-shape’ which Jean Sermet described
– its size (51,5 x 54cm) and material construction look very much alike many of the bm’s in the range 158-195
– I can’t think of any other reasonable use of this object (anyway too large and lacking a hole for being the base for a gate-post).
I’m proud to announce that the second series of GRPdesBF-stages is ready: you can walk from Arnéguy to Col de la Pierre St-Martin (bm196-262) in 4 days.
And there are many additions: check the update-log
I was very happy to receive a copy of
THOMAS, Lucien
Bornes frontière France/Espagne – Années 2010 – 2011 – 2012
Biarritz, 2013 (a private edition of only 40 copies)
It’s a photo-account of the bordermarkers 1 to 272 with large and clear pictures. I liked it very much. It’s the culmination of a remarkable project by a remarkable couple. Lucien Thomas was 76 years old when he started in 2010 with this adventure, together with his wife Colette.
It’s location is approximately 125m west of the borderline. Why? What went wrong in 1858 or 1859? Let’s first get a bird’s-eye view.
This is a screenprint from Google Earth. The yellow line is – approximately – the borderline as we find it on the French and Spanish maps. We have a confirmation of it actual position in this terrain by a newspaper-article which states that the site of the Marcel Loubens-cave was on the borderline but the entrance of the cave a few meters on French soil. Marcel Loubens was a famous French speleologist who died in 1952 in this cave: see this wikipedia article and my own esfr-html-trips-20100907.html
So the location of bm261 is a mystery but Jacques Koleck unshrouded some of its secrets by studying the archives. He wrote me in 2013: “The 261 cross surprises a little by his position slightly to the west. In the minutes of the “Commissions de vérification des bornes internationales” – which I found in the Archives Départementales of Pau – indicate that the location of the cross 261 was verified in 1859 – eight months after the signing of the Treaty – by delegates of the communities of Saint Engrace and Isaba and from 1862 onwards by the delegates of Aramits and Isaba who found “that all bordermarkers were in good condition and placed at the places indicated in the minutes of the demarcation of december 28, 1858.”
During the period 1862-1881 the bordermarker 261 however was each year subject to a protest from the town of Saint Engrace who felt that this bordermarker was on their territory. Then everything calmed down and the Aramits- and Isaba-representatives continued to meet every august 21 from 1911 to 1925 (later archives burned) coming to the same conclusion: “The bordermarkers are placed … on the places indicated in the minutes of the demarcation …. “.
But I still wonder about the meaning of the term “mobile bordermarker” that I found in the minutes of the Commission (1914, 1921 and 1923): “The delegates agreed that bordermarker 261, the only mobile bordermarker, is in good condition and at its original place … “. A bordermarkers is meant to be fixed and not to be mobile or to be move.”
By the way, bm261 is not the only esfr-bordermarker quite dislocated from the borderline. Another example is bm235: see http://www.grpdesbf.nl/esfr-html-markers-230-236.html
Bm092 has been in a horizontal position since years, close to a bordercross. See this webpage. But on april 24th 2013 bm-explorer Javier Martínez Ruiz (see this page) discovered that it was reinstalled. And he kindly sent this picture.
Javier Martínez Ruiz is an expert on the Basque bordermarkers, his knowledge brought together in his encyclopedic article “Los mojones internacionales desde Biriatou hasta Arneguy” (see my literature-list). Recently he re-visited bm141 to 148, primarily to visit bm145 because of the amazing discovery of Jacques Koleck (see previous post).
But he also remembered that there’s a number 146, engraved in a rock close to bm146.
And he sent me two pictures from which I made this compilation. This rock is ± 15 meters west of bm416 and it seems if only the number is engraved, no cross.
Jacques Koleck (see this previous post) makes me jealous: he lives close to the Pyrenees, is retired but still physically fit and has plenty of time to search for esfr-bordermarkers. His latest discovery: the original bm145!
We know bm145 as an atypical borderstone with its number vertically engraved.
Thanks to Robert Darrieumerlou, I learned that there’s a cross engraved in the rock at its foot. See this webpage on my website. Apparently – I thought – an older delimitation-cross from a pre-numbering-era. But: ‘the Treaty’ stated that bm145 was a bordercross.
Jacques got the brillant idea to undig that rock and discovered an engraved number on it:
So this rock is the original bm145!!! For Jacques, this discovery was understandably “un très grand plaisir “.