New discoveries

Not too far from the city of Fier in Albania, there is a jewel of an archaeological site named Apollonia, which dates back to Illyrian times. I visited and enjoyed the place with some Italian friends as per my post dated May 2nd, 2009, but did not go back since then because I heard it was temporarily closed to the public.

Now am happy to read that new exiting findings are taking place in this ancient city as per current CBS News and AFT reports.

With the development of tourism in Albania and the increase of visitors to the country, there is also an incremental interest in historical places and ancient grounds, which have been studied in the past, but continue to attract curiosity and new digging projects, also on the part of some American universities and their students. One of them I know is currently involved in this type of work at the site of Butrint (in southern Albania) as part of her curriculum, and I look forward to hearing about her experiences upon her return.

With her I shared an old report and pictures taken by one of my paternal uncles, when he did a study on that site in the early 1930's. He had archaeology and photography as hobbies and the following couple of pictures are an example of what he dealt with then, and I hope that these artifacts are now hopefully and properly stored somewhere.