Mohovo

Mohovo is a small Srijem village within the City of Ilok, set between the slopes of Fruška Gora and the Danube. Its visitor appeal comes not from a large historic centre but from fossil discoveries that earned it the name “Valley of Mammoths”. Bones of a woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros were uncovered in an orchard in 2012, and subsequent investigations also identified remains of hyena, wild horse and bison. These animals belonged to the Pleistocene megafauna that inhabited this steppe landscape more than 15,000 years ago. A life-size mammoth sculpture now greets visitors in central Mohovo, while the permanent exhibition “Fossils from the Valley of Mammoths in Mohovo” presents the village’s finds inside the community hall. The local Valley of Mammoths association expands the story through workshops, exhibitions and Mammothfest. Mohovo also belongs to Ilok’s vineyard-and-river landscape, making the village a natural companion to the Ilok Town Museum in Odescalchi Castle, whose natural-history collection includes mammoth tusks and part of a steppe-elephant skeleton.

Mohovo is one of the settlements administered by the City of Ilok, together with Bapska, Šarengrad, Radoš and Ilok itself. It lies in western Srijem, in the landscape between the Danube and the rolling slopes of Fruška Gora. The modern nickname “Valley of Mammoths” stems from a 2012 discovery in an orchard, where fragments of woolly mammoth and rhinoceros were found in loess deposits roughly 130–150 centimetres below ground. Further fossil locations emerged later, while the mammoth sculpture in the village centre has turned Mohovo’s palaeontological story into its most recognisable symbol.