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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Bart]

 The Shala valley in northern Northern Albania's mountains, the tail end of the Alps  

   Looking to get it away from it all? Consider Albania. An archaeology team reports that the mountains of northern Albania, perhaps the most remote place left in Europe, have been a hide-out for a surprisingly long time.

   A leader of the expedition, archaeologist Michael Galaty of Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., reports on this summer's expedition now that he's back from to the Shala Valley in northern Northern Albania's mountains, the tail end of the Alps.



   "Some five hundred years ago, people came here fleeing the Ottoman empire. We expected to find what they left behind," Galaty says. Perched on a promontory near the village of Grunas (Groo-NAS) are the remains of walls, which the team initially assumed were from a hideout left over from the 1500's, a time when exiles repopulated the region, on the lam from the new empire.

   However, a little digging on a 2006 expedition revealed something wrong with the walls. They were too old and some were made of "cyclopean" stone, boulders roughly fitted together without any mortar, a style associated with the Bronze Age Greek Kingdom of Mycenae. Instead of a medieval hidey-hole, the team had unearthed the remains of a fortress from the Bronze Age, some time around 800 B.C., as indicated by a radiocarbon date and the pottery and stone tools left behind there.

   "For whatever reason, it turns out people have been fleeing to this valley for about 3,000 years," Galaty says. The find is particularly interesting for a few reasons, he adds. Around 800 B.C., the shift from Bronze Age to Iron Age had started in the region of Europe north of Greece. The ancient Greeks were emerging from a long Dark Age that had lasted for several centuries and were tangling with Illyrian kingdoms on the Adriatic coast, just downhill from mountainous northern Albania.

   The Illyrians were one of the classic pains-in-the-necks of in the classical world. Their pirates were denounced by the Romans, who routed them on the way to conquering the Mediterranean around, in a long-running fight that concluded around 160 B.C. Was the fortress of Grunas some sort of redoubt against these ruffians of the high seas in the ancient world, or part of their kingdom, Galaty and his colleagues wondered.

   This summer, with help from the National Science Foundation and others, Galaty's team went back to uncover the story of who owned the fortress of Grunas. To their surprise, they uncovered at least five buildings (two of them stone), mud-plastered houses for a more than a dozen people, the foundations of a pair of look-out towers, a gate and huge terraces. Galaty believes a few hundred people likely lived in the fortress, whose age was confirmed by chemical analysis of the pottery shards found in the foundations. "Somebody put in a lot of time and effort to build walls up there," he says, noting the terrace walls were several feet thick and reached more than 15 feet high in places.

   Drilling about 2,000 auger holes in the terraces atop the hilltop, the team determined that people have been leaving behind waste at the site since at least about 1,000 BC. And they found the terraces were carefully engineered in place, a common practice in the classic Greek world, but unknown in northern Albanian sites.

   Although the team members, who included Ols Lafe of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology and Zamir Tafilica of Albania's Shkod�r Historical Museum, are still deciphening who lived in Grunas, much of the pottery they have uncovered appears to originate from farther south of Albania in the early Iron Age, towards the Illyrian coast. The Shala Valley may have held folks trading with the Illyrians, if not hiding from them, Galaty suggests. "History repeats itself, after all."

   The next invasion might not be pirates or empire-builders, he adds, but skiers, attracted by snows that regularly leave people snowed in during the height of winter and a slowing of hostilities in Kosovo. "If they put in a paved road to the valley, it will be all over," says Galaty. "It's just too beautiful a place to be hidden forever."
 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2007-08-19-albania_N.htm?csp=34

[Bart]

The Ancient Illyrians   
 
   Mystery enshrouds the exact origins of today's Albanians. Most historians of the Balkans believe the Albanian people are in large part descendants of the ancient Illyrians, who, like other Balkan peoples, were subdivided into tribes and clans. The name Albania is derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Arber, or Arberesh�, and later Albanoi, that lived near Durr�s. The Illyrians were Indo-European tribesmen who appeared in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula about 1000 B.C., a period coinciding with the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age.

   They inhabited much of the area for at least the next millennium. Archaeologists associate the Illyrians with the Hallstatt culture, an Iron Age people noted for production of iron and bronze swords with winged-shaped handles and for domestication of horses. The Illyrians occupied lands extending from the Danube, Sava, and Morava rivers to the Adriatic Sea and the Sar Mountains. At various times, groups of Illyrians migrated over land and sea into Italy.

   The Illyrians carried on commerce and warfare with their neighbors. The ancient Macedonians probably had some Illyrian roots, but their ruling class adopted Greek cultural characteristics. The Illyrians also mingled with the Thracians, another ancient people with adjoining lands on the east. In the south and along the Adriatic Sea coast, the Illyrians were heavily influenced by the Greeks, who founded trading colonies there. The present-day city of Durr�s evolved from a Greek colony known as Epidamnos, which was founded at the end of the seventh century B.C. Another famous Greek colony, Apollonia, arose between Durr�s and the port city of Vlor�.

   The Illyrians produced and traded cattle, horses, agricultural goods, and wares fashioned from locally mined copper and iron. Feuds and warfare were constant facts of life for the Illyrian tribes, and Illyrian pirates plagued shipping on the Adriatic Sea. Councils of elders chose the chieftains who headed each of the numerous Illyrian tribes. From time to time, local chieftains extended their rule over other tribes and formed short-lived kingdoms. During the fifth century B.C., a well-developed Illyrian population center existed as far north as the upper Sava River valley in what is now Slovenia. Illyrian friezes discovered near the present-day Slovenian city of Ljubljana depict ritual sacrifices, feasts, battles, sporting events, and other activities.

   The Illyrian kingdom of Bardhyllus became a formidable local power in the fourth century B.C. In 358 B.C., however, Macedonia's Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, defeated the Illyrians and assumed control of their territory as far as Lake Ohrid (see fig. 5). Alexander himself routed the forces of the Illyrian chieftain Clitus in 335 B.C., and Illyrian tribal leaders and soldiers accompanied Alexander on his conquest of Persia. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., independent Illyrian kingdoms again arose. In 312 B.C., King Glaucius expelled the Greeks from Durr�s. By the end of the third century, an Illyrian kingdom based near what is now the Albanian city of Shkod�r controlled parts of northern Albania, Montenegro, and Hercegovina. Under Queen Teuta, Illyrians attacked Roman merchant vessels plying the Adriatic Sea and gave Rome an excuse to invade the Balkans.

   In the Illyrian Wars of 229 and 219 B.C., Rome overran the Illyrian settlements in the Neretva River valley. The Romans made new gains in 168 B.C., and Roman forces captured Illyria's King Gentius at Shkod�r, which they called Scodra, and brought him to Rome in 165 B.C. A century later, Julius Caesar and his rival Pompey fought their decisive battle near Durr�s (Dyrrachium). Rome finally subjugated recalcitrant Illyrian tribes in the western Balkans dwing the region of Emperor Tiberius in A.D. 9. The Romans divided the lands that make up present-day Albania among the provinces of Macedonia, Dalmatia, and Epirus.

   For about four centuries, Roman rule brought the Illyrian-populated lands economic and cultural advancement and ended most of the enervating clashes among local tribes. The Illyrian mountain clansmen retained local authority but pledged allegiance to the emperor and acknowledged the authority of his envoys. During a yearly holiday honoring the Caesars, the Illyrian mountaineers swore loyalty to the emperor and reaffirmed their political rights. A form of this tradition, known as the kuvend, has survived to the present day in northern Albania.

   The Romans established numerous military camps and colonies and completely latinized the coastal cities. They also oversaw the construction of aqueducts and roads, including the Via Egnatia, a famous military highway and trade route that led from Durr�s through the Shkumbin River valley to Macedonia and Byzantium (later Constantinople)Constantinople.

   Originally a Greek city, Byzantium, it was made the capital of the Byzantine Empire by Constantine the Great and was soon renamed Constantinople in his honor. The city was captured by the Turks in 1453 and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks called the city Istanbul, but most of the non-Muslim world knew it as Constantinople until about 1930. 

   Copper, asphalt, and silver were extracted from the mountains. The main exports were wine, cheese, oil, and fish from Lake Scutari and Lake Ohrid. Imports included tools, metalware, luxury goods, and other manufactured articles. Apollonia became a cultural center, and Julius Caesar himself sent his nephew, later the Emperor Augustus, to study there.

   Illyrians distinguished themselves as warriors in the Roman legions and made up a significant portion of the Praetorian Guard. Several of the Roman emperors were of Illyrian origin, including Diocletian (284-305), who saved the empire from disintegration by introducing institutional reforms, and Constantine the Great (324-37)--who accepted Christianity and transferred the empire's capital from Rome to Byzantium, which he called Constantinople. Emperor Justinian (527-65)--who codified Roman law, built the most famous Byzantine church, the Hagia Sofia, and reextended the empire's control over lost territories- -was probably also an Illyrian.

   Christianity came to the Illyrian-populated lands in the first century A.D. Saint Paul wrote that he preached in the Roman province of Illyricum, and legend holds that he visited Durr�s. When the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves in A.D. 395, the lands that now make up Albania were administered by the    Eastern Empire but were ecclesiastically dependent on Rome. In A.D. 732, however, a Byzantine emperor, Leo the Isaurian, subordinated the area to the patriarchate of Constantinople. For centuries thereafter, the Albanian lands became an arena for the ecclesiastical struggle between Rome and Constantinople. Most Albanians living in the mountainous north became Roman Catholic, while in the southern and central regions, the majority became Orthodox.

Source [for the Library of Congress]: Based on information from R. Ernest Dupuy and Trevor N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History, New York, 1970, 95; Herman Kinder and Werner Hilgemann, The Anchor Atlas of World History, 1, New York, 1974, 90, 94; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15, New York, 1975, 1092.