Mejtas, the square like plateau that connects even eight streets, rises above the valley of river Miljacka like small weald.
The narrow plateau was not inhabited before the arrival of Ottomans and its land probably belonged to inhabitants of the medieval village Bilave, the present-day Sarajevo settlement Bjelave.
“The name Mejtas (Meyt-taş) itself, comes from the Arabic word mejt (corpse, dead) and the Turkish word taş (stone). That is the special stone that is being laid with the corpse during the Islamic funeral player, and that stone is usually located opposite the mosque. It is not known what it looked like, but it is not excluded that it might be the tombstone or the piece of some Roman building.
It is important to remind that cemeteries Banjski Brijeg and Gornja and Donja Cekrekcinica (The Big and Small park) were located near it.
The urbanization of Sarajevo started with the arrival of the Austro-Hungarian authorities led to the rapid building. At the edge of Banjski Brijeg, there is the Institute of St. Joseph, and the Jewish synagogue next to the mosque. The violation of the ancient Bosnian ambient with the new building led to the disappearance of the mosque Armaganusa at the beginning of World War I.
Built according to the project of Juraj Neidhardt, the Scout home has small observatory dome for telescopic observations of the celestial bodies. During the siege, that object was hardly devastated and now there is the Primary school “Silvija Strahimir Kranjcevic“.
(Source: radiosarajevo.ba)
