Albania is not well known by outsiders; it was deliberately closed to the outside world during the communist era. Now it has thankfully become free again, its borders are open and it can be visited, and it is increasingly integrating with the rest of Europe and beyond. Unfortunately, Albania has had its share of problems in the post-communist era; it's a land of destitution and despair, thanks in part to the Albanian mafia, which has turned the country into one of blood-feuds, kalashnikovs, and eternal crises. Yet, Albania is, in essence, a European nation like any other ...
This edited volume is dedicated to national-socialist archaeology as a Europe-wide phenomenon. It analyses national-socialist attempts to denationalize the archaeologies of European nations by creating a new unifying European archaeology on a racial basis. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, archaeology began to develop into an important force behind processes of nation building. At the same time, structures of transnational academic collaboration contributed strongly to the internal dynamics of the research field, which was primarily organized on a national basis. In those European countries that were confronted with national-socialist occupation and repression between 1939 and 1945, these transnational archaeological networks were to prove crucial for the development of national-socialist archaeological policies. This volume will reveal how national-socialist archaeology was to an extent valued positively in its time as highly innovative, even influencing the archaeology of non-occupied countries. Although in the final instance, it generally failed to displace the national archaeologies in Europe, the volume also analyses the long-term impact of national-socialist rule on the development of European archaeology. How did the attempts to create a unified European archaeology after 1945 continue to influence networks, methods and terminologies, institutional structures, or popular representations of the early past?
This volume brings together unpublished Italian and Albanian archaeological reports and new archaeological studies from recent fieldwork that throw new light on the archaeology and history of the Pavllas River Valley, the Mediterranean alluvial plain in the territory of Butrint, ancient Buthrotum, in southwestern Albania. It gives prominence for the first time to two important sites, Kalivo and Çuka e Aitoit, which are here reinterpreted and shown to have played major roles in the early history of Butrint as it evolved in the later first millennium BC to emerge as the key city of Chaonia in Epirus. Butrint 7 also presents the full excavation report of the Late Bronze Age and Hellenistic fortified site of Mursi, in addition to other Butrint Foundation surveys and excavations in the hinterland of Butrint, including the Roman villa maritima at Diaporit, the villa suburbana on the Vrina Plain, and Roman sites on Alinura Bay and at the Customs House, as well as new surveys of the early modern Triangular Fortress and a survey to locate the lost Venetian village of Zarópulo. The volume also features a new study of the Hellenistic bronze statuette of Pan found on Mount Mile and of his sanctuary at Butrint. The volume concludes with a comprehensive reassessment of the Pavllas River Valley in relation to Butrint, from the Palaeolithic to the modern eras, examining how dominion, territory, environment and the ‘corrupting sea’ reshaped Butrint and its fluvial corridor diachronically and particularly brought profound territorial, economic and social alterations under the Roman Empire.
Butrint has been one of the largest archaeological projects in the Mediterranean over the last two decades. Major excavations and a multi-volume series of accompanying scientific publications have made this a key site for our developing understanding of the Roman and Medieval Mediterranean. Through this set of interwoven reflections about the archaeology and cultural heritage history of his twenty-year odyssey in south-west Albania, Richard Hodges considers how the Butrint Foundation protected and enhanced Butrint's spirit of place for future generations. Hodges reviews Virgil's long influence on Butrint and how its topographic archaeology has now helped to invent a new narrative and identity. He then describes the struggle of placemaking in Albania during the early post-communist era, and finally asks, in the light of the Butrint Foundation's experience, who matters in the shaping of a place – international regulations, the nation, the archaeologist, the visitor, the local community or some combination of all of these stakeholders? With appropriate maps and photographs, this book aims to offer an unusual but important new direction for archaeology in the Mediterranean. It should be essential reading for archaeologists, classical historians, medievalists, cultural heritage specialists, tourism specialists as well as those interested in the Mediterranean's past and future.
The ancient walled town of Butrint sits at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. In its heyday it could command sea-routes up the Adriatic Sea to the north, across the Mediterranean to the west, and south through the Ionian islands. It also controlled a land-route into the mountainous Balkan interior. For much of its long history it occupied a hill on a bend in the Vivari Channel, which connects the Straits to the large inland lagoon of Lake Butrint. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992, Butrint covers an area of around 16 ha, but geophysical survey has shown that at times it was almost twice this size. The site itself is made up of two parts: the acropolis and the lower city. The acropolis is a long narrow hill, whose sides are accentuated by a circuit of walls that separate it from the natural and artificial terraces gathered around the flanks of the hill. The lower city occupies the lower-lying contours down to the edge of the Vivari Channel. This book brings to life this extraordinary Byzantine town, with chapters on the historical sources, various aspects of the archaeological excavation and survey, finds of pottery and environmental remains.
The archaeological study of the ancient world has become increasingly popular in recent years. A Research Guide to the Ancient World: Print and Electronic Sources, is a partially annotated bibliography. The study of the ancient world is usually, although not exclusively, considered a branch of the humanities, including archaeology, art history, languages, literature, philosophy, and related cultural disciplines which consider the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean world, and adjacent Egypt and southwestern Asia. Chronologically the ancient world would extend from the beginning of the Bronze Age of ancient Greece (ca. 1000 BCE) to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (ca. 500 CE). This book will close the traditional subject gap between the humanities (Classical World; Egyptology) and the social sciences (anthropological archaeology; Near East) in the study of the ancient world. This book is uniquely the only bibliographic resource available for such holistic coverage. The volume consists of 17 chapters and seven appendixes, arranged according to the traditional types of library research materials (bibliographies, dictionaries, atlases, etc.). The appendixes are mostly subject specific, including graduate programs in ancient studies, reports from significant archaeological sites, numismatics, and paleography and writing systems. These extensive author and subject indexes help facilitate ease of use.
Butrint, ancient Buthrotum, has taken many forms in different ages, shaped by the near-constant interaction between the place, its lagoonal landscape and the Mediterranean. Though Butrint does not appear on any of the records of early Greek colonization to identify it as a Corcyrean settlement, strong links must have existed between it and the metropolitan Corinthian colony of Corfu. Blessed with springs that possessed healing qualities, a small polis was created - extended to incorporate a healing sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius. Julius Caesar, harboring at Butrint in urgent need of supplies to sustain his struggle against Pompey, must have viewed the sanctuary, ringed by largely dried-out marshland, as the perfect site to settle veterans as a colony. It was an obvious cornerstone in controlling the passage from the Adriatic to the Aegean. The early settlers seem to have been limited in number and possibly mainly of civilian status. However, the political changes to the city's magistrature were immediate, and within a relatively short time-span fundamental changes to the physical make-up of the city were set in motion. Its new Roman status also located Butrint as a directly before the highest authorities in Rome, and within fifteen years or so, under Augustus's guidance following his victory at Actium, the city was refounded as a colony and awarded a pivotal role in Virgil's court-sponsored foundation epic, The Aeneid. Now linked to the Victory City of Nicopolis rather than in the shadow of Corfu, Butrint prospered. The urban fabric evolved, sometimes faltered, but was essentially sustained until the later 6th century A.D. This present volume is an assessment of the Roman archaeology, a compilation of studies and field reports that focuses upon the foundation and early history of the colony.
The author examines the indigenous diatonic and chromatic modes used in Albanian urban music and classifies them under traditional headings and as part of a newly established grouping, here termed south-western Balkan modes. The core of the work is the analysis of Albanian urban lyric songs, seen as an artistic version of the traditional Albanian urban songs.
Focusing on extreme environments, from Umberto Nobile’s expedition to the Arctic to the commercialization of Mt Everest, this volume examines global environmental margins, how they are conceived and how perceptions have changed. Mountaintops and Arctic environments are the settings of social encounters, political strategies, individual enterprises, geopolitical tensions, decolonial practises, and scientific experiments. Concentrating on mountaineering and Arctic exploration between 1880 – 1960, contributors to this volume show how environmental marginalisation has been discursively implemented and materially generated by foreign and local actors. It examines to what extent the status and identity of extreme environments has changed during modern times, moving them from periphery to the centre and discarding their marginality. The first section looks at ways in which societies have framed remoteness, through the lens of commercialization, colonialism, knowledge production and sport, while the second examines the reverse transfer, focusing on how extreme nature has influenced societies, through international network creation, political consensus and identity building. This collection enriches the historical understanding of exploration by adopting a critical approach and offering multidimensional and multi-gaze reconstructions. This book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in environmental history, geography, colonial studies and the environmental humanities.
