In Search of Pre-Classical

Antiquity
Rediscovering Ancient Peoples in Mediterranean
Europe (19th and 20th c.)

Edited by

Antonino De Francesco

LEIDEN | BOSTON

For use by the Author only | 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV

Contents
List of Figuresvii
Notes on Contributorsviii
Introduction1
Antonino De Francesco
1 Italian Celticisms: A Second (Unpublished) Version of Giovanni
Fabbronis Antichi Abitatori dItalia (1803)19
Katia Visconti
2 Local Pride, Ethnicity and Ancient History in Turin in the Risorgimento:
The Representation of the Taurisci/Taurini in Carlo Promis Storia
dellAntica Torino (1869)41
Filippo Carl-Uhink
3 The Invention of Numantia and Emporion: Archaeology and the
Regeneration of Spanish and Catalan Nationalisms after the Crisis of
189864
Francisco Gracia-Alonso
4 Illyrian Autochthonism and the Beginnings of South Slav Nationalisms
in the West Balkans96
Rok Stergar
5 Illyrians Across the Adriatic: A Cultural History of an Archaeological
Culture119
Maja Gori
6 Classical Antiquity and Modern Greek National Identity: Reliving the
Ancient Maritime Heritage at the Sea of Salamis146
Eleni Stefanou
7 Shifting Discourses of Heritage and Identity in Turkey: Anatolianist
Ideologies and Beyond166
idem Atakuman
Bibliography183
Index204

For use by the Author only | 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV

CHAPTER 5

Illyrians Across the Adriatic: A Cultural History

of an Archaeological Culture
Maja Gori

Introduction

This paper focuses on the construction of Illyrians as Iron Age archaeological culture and on the role it played within the Albanian and Yugoslav identity building processes. It explores the evolution and changes of the Illyrian
concept and discourse through time, when and how they were used and how
they were influenced by diffferent trends in archaeological interpretation and
historical events. By discussing the most relevant theoretical approaches to
archaeology that shaped the discipline in Albania and Yugoslavia during the
19th and 20th century, this paper shows how diffferent trends in archaeological
interpretation were deeply influenced by changing geopolitical scenarios.
The idea of an archaeological culture as a definable entity in space and time
has survived the onslaughts of several generations of theoretically inclined
archaeologists. Cultures have been deconstructed, reformulated, renamed
and simply ignored but have been refusing to be consigned to the dustbin of
archaeological research, as Roberts and Vander Linden have recently recalled.1
Whether they are employed as a background to regional or local investigations
or they provide the central focus for research, archaeological cultures show no
signs of going away. For decades, archaeologists have classified spatial clusters
of artefacts into discrete cultures, which are conventionally treated as bound
entities. As material culture was increasingly seen as an expression of group
identity, archaeological cultures themselves have often been equated with past
social, or even ethnic, entities. The need for reconceptualising boundaries and
identity is a recurrent theme in archaeology since the late 1960s. Researchers
became suspect of simple correlations between artefact distributions and
group identity and sought new approaches to the interpretation of variability.
1 B. Roberts M. Vander Linden, Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture,
Variability and Transmission In B. Roberts M. Vander Linden (eds.) Investigating
archaeological cultures: material culture, variability, and transmission (Springer: New YorkHeidelberg, 2011): 121.

koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017|doi 10.1163/9789004335424_007

For use by the Author only | 2017 Koninklijke Brill NV