Albanian archaeology

Since the start of archaeological research at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Butrint (Bouthrotos/Buthrotum) in southern Albania, archaeologists have allowed the water table to serve as a limit to
archaeological excavation. From 2011 to 2013, the Roman Forum Excavations (RFE) Project conducted the first wet-site excavations at Butrint, reaching depths of up to 4 m below the water table in the ancient urban center. Well-preserved wood and other organic remains were recovered from waterlogged deposits, dating as early as the 7th century B.C. Major changes in RFE Project methodology emerged in response to wet-site archaeology. Unskilled local workers were trained to become local excavators. This significantly improved excavation techniques and recording procedures and enhanced the quality of the archaeological data, showing the high degree to which seemingly disparate elements of field methodology are intertwined.

Në punimet e mëposhtme na paraqitet një gjeografi historike e trojeve shqiptare duke filluar nga krahinat përreth liqenit të Shkodrës e duke përfunduar në qytetin e lashtë Amantia në afërsi të Gjirokastrës. Përshkrimet gjeografike-historike të saj janë pjesë të ndryshme nga leksionet e Konstantin Jireçekut mbi gjeografinë historike të vendeve ballkanike, të mbajtura në Universitetin e Vjenës, të cilat më vonë u botuan edhe nëpër revista të ndryshme të kohës.
Autori përqendrohet kryesisht në zonën bregdetare të Shqipërisë së Sotme  dhe na jep shumë të dhëna, jo vetëm për lokalitetet historike të krahinave përkatëse, por edhe për monumente kishtare dhe për personazhe historike të kohërave të ndryshme nga lashtësia deri në fillim të kohës së re, të cilët kanë luajtur një rol të rëndësishëm në lokalitetet për të cilat bëhet fjalë. Ky botim ndahet në katër pjesë, të cilat janë katër studime që autori ka bërë mbi gjeografinë historike dhe mbi historinë e trojeve dhe të popullit shqiptar, duke filluar nga lashtësia dhe në pjesën e fundit, duke përfunduar me një vështrim të përgjithshëm historik deri në kapërcyellin e shekujve XIX-XX, kohë në të cilën ka jetuar edhe vetë autori.

Le centre monumental roman d'Apollonia d'Illyrie, en Albanie, est un ensemble datant du Haut-Empire. Négligées au moment des fouilles, tant françaises au début du XXe siècle qu'albanaises dans le troisième quart de ce même siècle, les vestiges d'un réaménagement datant du Bas-Empire ont partiellement subsisté. Cet article tente d'en faire l'inventaire et de caractériser cette réoccupation.

Berserkism in the Merovingian Empire? For three generations of research, impressive evidence
has been available: the pressblech foils from Obrigheim and Gutenstein. ‘Wolf warriors’ thus
seem to have been proven not only in the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon regions, but also in
Christian south-western Germany.  The article
attempts – based on the Obrigheim find – to retrace the history of the interpretation of these
pictorial works and to offer a new approach to interpretation.

"If you would like a copy of this paper, please email [email protected]. This study provides a new perspective of the impact of heritage management on local communities associated with the Butrint National Park (BNP), a UNESCO World Heritage site in southern Albania. Interviews with local stakeholders from the towns of Ksamil, Shëndëlli, Vrinë, Xarrë, and Mursi explore the cultural and economic significance of Butrint and the effects of current heritage management programs. The BNP represents a case study for the balance of local goals with sustainable tourism, resource protection, economic development, and the preservation of archaeological and cultural heritage. National and international groups have been active at the BNP and its hinterland since 1990, working to develop the ancient city as a cultural heritage site and use it to bring economic and developmental benefits to local towns. Butrint is important to people for historical and economic reasons, but the BNP is a difficult resource for communities to access. Locals desire economic benefits from employment, tourism, and development projects, but also want continued research and preservation of the ancient city of Butrint. Several local goals are compatible with the goals of heritage management, suggesting the potential to enhance the relationship between the BNP and communities while continuing development projects in the park’s hinterland. The local continuation of past programs begun by foreign organizations has the potential to create small-scale sustainable tourism at a local level. The local perspective of the relationship between the BNP and its hinterland and the potential for increased future collaboration can guide future management at the BNP and other cultural heritage sites."

El origen de los Arevacos es un extracto del libro Karuo el secreto ibero, por el cual Enrique Cabrejas o Enric Cabrejas nos relata de modo llano su experiencia personal con lo extraordinario de un descubrimiento. El 21 de Abril de 2012 consiguió lo que parecía imposible: Descifrar la escritura ibérica. El hallazgo más relevante de la cultura universal en nuestro país de los últimos tiempos, sin lugar a dudas. Un hito en la historia de la escritura sin precedentes. Desde este mismo instante la obra Karuo de Enrique Cabrejas lo convierte en un referente destacado a nivel mundial en historia y lingüística. Los innumerables datos, explicaciones, pruebas y significados que nos reporta nunca conocidos antes, son una referencia obligada para todos aquellos que quieran comprender la historia, la lengua antigua e incluso también la moderna de nuestro país o para quienes en el futuro deseen estudiarla e investigarla en profundidad, más si cabe desde el mundo académico.

Lissus during the Period of the Antiquity
The article deals with the history of the city of Lissus (today Lezha) from
the origins to the end of Antiquity. So at the center of this study is the period of Antiquity, during which the city had its ups and downs. The article has seven sections, which consist of a specific period of principal events of this city. The introductory chapter gives an overview of the primary sources and studies for this city. Apart from the text, the article has some views and maps that have their relevance in this study.

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. © 2015 Verlag Antike e.K., Heidelberg Satz Stylianos Chronopoulos, Freiburg i. Br., für Verlag Antike Einbandgestaltung disegno visuelle kommunikation, Wuppertal Einbandmotive Vorderseite: Modelle von Knidos mit freundlicher Genehmigung von H. Bankel, V. Hinz und S. Franz. Rückseite: Athen, Akropolis. Basis eines Weihgeschenks des Hegelochos. Zeichnung von A. Brauchle und Z. Spyranti mit freundlicher Genehmigung. (Hauptmotiv spiegelverkehrt verwendet; alle Abbildungen in Band 1 dieser Reihe, Stadtbilder im Hellenismus, S. 114, 115 und 226).

Pottery is the most common archaeological material recorded in large quantities at the excavation of the Neolithic sites in the Aegean and the Balkans. Thus, it comprises the best proxy to understand the Late Neolithic communities in the southern Balkans, especially prehistoric technology, daily life practices, human-object interactions, and local or regional contacts. Despite the attention that the Neolithic pottery has received in previous publications, its social dimensions have been poorly studied in Albania. The current dissertation approaches such aspects by exploring the sociocultural journey of the ceramic assemblages in Korçë region in southeastern Albania as they traverse various itineraries from the manufacture and use to cross-
site circulation. This research adopts a holistic, interdisciplinary approach combining contemporary theoretical perspectives, traditional recording techniques, and a multianalytic approach. 
My research views the sociocultural dimensions of the pottery as dynamic interactions between humans and vessels, interhuman relationships, and cross-site or interregional contacts providing a narrative told by vessels as they move from one social practice to another. It perceives technological choices as practices that emerge through the interaction of tradition, relationship with the material world, and cross-site contacts. The study considers the active role of the Neolithic Pottery in the southern Balkans beyond functionality and identity negotiation, imposing through its attributes such as size and shape, specific behaviors of the residents regarding their use, and the interaction with other members of their community. This approach also assigns an active role to ceramic assemblages in local or regional contacts putting the communities of potters at the center of such connections since they facilitate the circulation of technologies and raw materials. As links or boundary objects, potters and ceramic technologies bring together social groups from different sites and regions, shaping and maintaining interregional communication channels in southeastern Albania. The participation of potters within such networks plays an essential role in the local and regional patterns of ceramic tradition in the Late Neolithic period in the region of Korçë and the southern Balkans.

Unable to afford advanced technological deterrents, Albania’s communist regime built 500 000 military bunkers as a defence against a possible invasion. These monoliths that dominate the landscape were thankfully never used for their intended purpose.
This body of work investigates the re-use and recycling of the wealth that the bunkers retain. Between the years of 1975 and 1988 an estimated 500 000 bunkers were constructed.  With so much wealth invested in these now useless monoliths, the citizens nowadays are extracting their inheritance by reusing the bunkers as cafes, restaurants, accommodation, and agricultural buildings.
They are images of the Albanian mentality today, a portrait of their lives set within the confines of their past. How they perceive and re-organise the failed state inherited from the bankrupt communist regime.

Ne arkitekturen dhe kuhuren shqiptare, monumentet e kultit te shek. VII - XV zene nje vend te rendesishem si deshmi autentike me vlera te jashtezakonshme per studimin e historise dhe te ndertimeve ne pergjithesi. Libri paraqet nje tablo te plote studimesh, shqiptare e te huaja, per kete gjini ndertimesh. Me nje analize te kujdesshme dhe paraqitje dinjitoze çdo monument eshte veshtruar ne teresi, ne aspektin e tipologjise kronologjike, te teknikes se ndertimit e te zbukurimeve, pa lene pasdore dhe vendin qe zene ato ne nje hapesire me te gjere, ballkaniko-mesdhetare. Ky liber eshte i dobishem per specialistet dhe studiuesit e monumenteve, te historise, te arkitektures, te ndertimit, si dhe per arsimtaret dhe studentet, per te gjithe ata qe interesohen per kulturen e shqiptareve ...

This chapter deals with the cultural and social history of an area encompassing ancient Epirus, Illyria, Macedonia, and Thrace. In the past, these historical landscapes were usually perceived as cultural or ethnic entities, and were used as arguments for past and modern ethnogenesis in the Balkans. The material culture of single micro-regions shows that these landscapes are culturally neither homogeneous nor consistent, and instead show an impressive diversity in settlement patterns, mortuary ideology, and other cultural attributes. Indeed, cultural affinities between micro-regions of different historical landscapes further challenge perceptions of ethnicity and other forms of social identity as reflecting cultural variability. Conceptualization of northern Greece and the central Balkans as a buffer zone between the Aegean world and continental Europe is another bias that reduces local social agents to recipients of cultural innovation from north and especially south, and overlooks the dynamic processes inherent in local social transformations.

The article is addressed to study the Angevin visual culture in Albania through unpublished or not well known testimonies, instruments of the propaganda. The first “study case” is about a cycle of frescos in a Benedictine church, where a local workshop educated to a Byzantine pictorial language, under the direction of the abbot concepteur of the cycle, put on scene the celebration of the Roman Church and the new French ruler. The frescos are dated on 1272, that was the same year in which the sources mention Charles of Anjou as Rex Albanie for the first time. After that, the focus of this research moves on the Angevin legacy in the 14th century. Images and symbols of the Angevin visual culture and propaganda were part of the Albanian cultural heritage, those have been reused by certain feudal families to show their own social status and ambitions. This phenomenon, jointly to the spread of the Catholicism, marked the approach of Albania to Western Europe until the Turkish conquest.

The ‟Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearers” probably belongs to a group of icons dedicated to feast-days and originally painted for the Dormition of the Virgin Cathedral in Voskopoja. The present icon is possibly connected with the entourage of the painter Constantine the hierodeacon, from the region of Shpat, near Elbasan, active between 1739 and 1769.

dell'Ambasciata d'Italia a Tirana, ed in particolare del prof. Adriano Ciani, Addetto alla Cooperazione Universitaria, Scientifica e Tecnologica, del Magnifico Rettore dell'Università di Parma, prof. Gino Ferretti, e dell'on. prof. Neritan Čeka, membro dell'Accademia delle Scienze albanese, ai quali va la nostra particolare gratitudine. Ringraziamo inoltre il prof. M. Korkuti, Direttore dell'Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia, per il sostegno e i preziosi consigli, i colleghi del Dipartimento di Storia dell'Università di Parma e il prof. P. Bobbio per l'appoggio scientifico e morale e il Direttore della Scuola Archeologica Italiana ad Atene, per avere generosamente accettato di ospitare questo primo rapporto di ricerca nella rivista della Scuola. Il nostro grazie va, infine, al Direttore dell'Istituto dei Monumenti di Cultura, a quello dell'Atelier dei Monumenti di Durazzo e a tutto il personale dell'Atelier e del Dipartimento di Archeologia per la concreta collaborazione. 2 SANTORO 2003 a. 3 Mostra fotografica itinerante in più lingue "Durrës. 3000 anni di civiltà", e relativi supporti didattici e divulgativi; Settimana di cultura "Il risveglio della città". ASAtene LXXXIII, serie III, 5, Tomo II, 2005, 717-806 721 Scavi e ricerche 6 TOÇI 1971. 7 GOLVIN 1988, 203. 8 L'ipotesi, accolta anche dal Golvin, si basa sul materiale trovato negli scavi, sulla tecnica edilizia e su un ragionamento induttivo che parte dall'iscrizione CIL III,607 oggi perduta e di trascrizione incerta, che cita un munus gladiatorium. L'iscrizione e la sua tradizione di studi sono in corso di studio da parte della prof. M.G. Arrigoni Bertini, che ringrazio per le preziose anticipazioni. 9 Sui terremoti di Durazzo: GUIDOBONI et alDurazzo 722 Fig. 6 -Carta del rischio archeologico di Durazzo (SANTORO -HOTI -MONTI -SHEHI 2004): a tratteggio le aree di necropoli di età classica, in rosso gli ingombri dei resti archeologici, in giallo le strutture riconosciute in foto aeree d'archivio 723

The present article discusses three grave contexts from the 6th to 7th centuries AD documented within the frame of a French-Albanian project in the Eastern cemetery of Lezha (Albania). They belong to western Balkan late-antique women elite, whose fashion dress followed the Roman model. Some of these women hold circular box brooches with Christian and apotropaic representations, common in the early Byzantine world. The Lezha grave contexts allow for contextualising similar finds from Kruja, Milot (Albania), and Virpazar (Montenegro). They highlight the presence of urban aristocracy in the hinterland of Dyrrhachium, whose dress-code, combined with rich standardised jewellery, reflects patterns similar to those known from the whole Mediterranean world. Recycling of these box brooches by later communities of the early Middle Ages, as well as by modern ones, witnesses a transfer of memory of objects. These examples stress the importance of finding contexts for a reliable discourse on populations and their dress-codes.

The social, economic, cultural and spiritual life of the Christian community in Korça was manifested through the Christian institutions of the city, which were the churches, the monasteries and the schools. The institutions of the
Christian Orthodox religion during the Ottoman conquest constituted the center of the community and were, at the same time, the venue of the artistic manifestations of the time. The development of the masonry and of the artistic activity in the city of Korça, as well as in the areas that were under the jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Korça, is evident also from the data offered by the church archives. One of these sources is the Codex of the Metropolis of Korça and Selasphorous, rich with important information concerning the masonry and the development of religious art during the 18th-19th centuries. Based on the data that come mainly from this source, but also from other regesta of churches or monasteries of the Metropolis of Korça, this paper aims to make a presentation of the cultural and artistic activity, through the critic presentation of the historic data regarding the monumental heritage of the Orthodox Christians in the city of Korça. The paper is separated in three units. In the first unit are presented the five church monuments that are built in the city of Korça. In succession we have presented a list of 19 monasteries, based on information from the Codex of Korça and other codices, giving also short information about the sources. On the last unit we have made a presentation of the artistic trends about the area in question, which are represented by the workshop of the Korça painters, starting with David Selenica, later mentioning other prominent painters, Konstandin Shpataraku, Konstandin the hieromonach, the brothers Konstandin and Athanasios Zografi, and also their sons, Terpo and Efthimios Zografi. The up to now research data are linked with new data that derive from the aforementioned sources, thus completing or reconsidering nowadays hypotheses about the artistic activity of these painters.

In the Black-gloss ware category, products from Pharus to Athens and some from Dyrrhachium (Group 1) have been identified. Most of the fusiform unguentaria are of Hellenistic date as well.
Most of the amphorae are from the Italian side of the Adriatic, similarly as at Risan. The bulk of the set is composed of vessels of the Lamboglia 2 type produced in many different production centers, prevalent in the first century BC. However, the manufacture of these containers in central Illyria, in Dalmatia, has been reasonably put into doubt. Having just the rims, it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish them from the Dressel 6 type of amphora from the Augustan period. In any case, both types were present in Scodra in the first century BC and first century AD. Another identified type is the Italo-Adriatic. The form Palazzo-Apani 1 / Giancola 2, from the Brindisi area, are dated to the end of the second century and the first half of the first century BC. The Graeco-Italic containers with fabrics from Adriatic Italy are among the earliest vessels; they are dated from the end of the third to the middle of the second century BC. They are well attested in Apollonia. The most interesting amphora was a Punic-Ebusitan type represented by a rim and handle, made in the island of Ebusus (Ibiza). These containers were common in the Western Mediterranean from the fifth to the first century BC. They are found all along the coast in Iberia, south Gaul, Morocco and Algeria, but in Italy they are very scarce. None had been recorded east of southern Italy (Pompeii). The remaining material consists of pottery from the Roman Imperial and late antique periods. Late Roman amphorae from Africa (Keay 61–62) and the Aegean (LRA 1, Ephesus type) are easily identified

Tirana, the capital city of Albania, in Antiquity did not exist as an inhabited centre, simply it was considered a rural area, the residential territory of Dyrrachium patricians, as was Ercolano for Pompeii. In 1972 in Tirana, during the construction of a building, the remains of a rustic villa built in Roman Period were brought to light accidentally, and some of the rooms were decorated with polychrome mosaics. This villa was used for more than four centuries and it has several phases of life, for this reason it was dated by the archaeologists between the end of the 1st and the 5th century AD.
The principal goal of the research is the punctual analysis of the mosaics motifs and their contextualization in the Balkan and Adriatic area, to identify the owner and the craftsmen who live and work in it. The second goal is to present to the international scientific community this rustic villa, a unique case for Tirana.