Military archaeology and contemporary reality in Albania

Heritage conservation provides economic, cultural and social benefits to urban communities. The building conservation role has changed from preservation to being part of a broader strategy for urban regeneration process and sustainable development. Heritage buildings are vital in for transferring the cultural identity for upcoming generations. Where heritage buildings can no longer function with its original use, proposing a new function is necessary to preserve the significance of the heritage building. This study aims to explore the fascinating dialogue between totalitarian regimes introduced in two museums adapted within the anti-nuclear bunkers in Tirana. The architectural projects of the museum aim to preserve the identity of their interior. While the careful architectural intervention is necessary to create the atmosphere of totalitarian ideology, in many cases we have to do with the continuity of existing architectural and urban elements in these particular projects. The work explores two museums, BuncArt 1 and BunkArt 2, quite interesting reflection of the parts of history, during the years of world wars and the period of dictatorship of communism, with the facilities and elements exhibited there. In the meantime, thereafter, one can speak of a longer period for the period of the communist regime extending from 1945 to 1990. The impact of communist ideology, coming from the communist bloc of the East, also affects architecture and urban studies in Albania. In some respects, we have a silent follow-up to the monumental interventions that were made before the end of World War II. Another important element was the radical intervention in the bunkers in the territory and in the cities. Their quantity is considered with an amount of 700 thousand pieces. They were different in size and were seen more as defence-related parts rather than as a direct link to the new realist-socialist architecture. The return of some of them to the exhibition space was a good step to revitalize them. Currently they have been transformed into successful tourist attractions. Visitors come to perceive three important elements: (1) attractive military engineering, carried out in contrast to the challenges of the time, (2) the suffocating atmosphere during the communist dictatorship, which required extreme safeguards, (3) elements and historical facts of the World War period, as important elements during the Cold War. An ambitious third project, which is expected to be implemented in the future, is the conversion of the Pashaliman Naval Base in Vlora into another important military museum. This port was originally set up by mid-Fifties, by Russian troops, to have control over the Adriatic. The port is currently part of the military, thought to turn into a strong tourist pole.

SEARCH SQUADS’ FINDINGS MUSEUM PRESENTATION POTENTIAL: THE SELECTION PRINCIPLES

The search for artefacts of the Great Patriotic War was analyzed. The features of the military archeology artifacts museum use were revealed. The museum properties of the search squads’ findings were considered. Military archaeology artefacts informativeness, representativeness, expressivity and attractiveness were analyzed. The criteria for military archeology artefacts selection in the field work have been identified. Attribution methods of for various groups of Great Patriotic War military archeology artefacts were proposed.

The Imperial Russian Military Historical Society and studies of monuments of Old Rus. 1908–1914

The activities of the Office of Military Archaeology and Archaeography (VAiA) of the Imperial Russian Military Historical Society (IRVIO) until now have not been sufficiently studied and are not comprehensively covered by historical investigations. This paper is devoted to the activities of members of IRVIO concerned with research of places of old-time battles and early Russian fortresses. The study is based on documents from the Scientific Archives of the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps.

Constructing the archaeology of the Roman conquest of Hispania: new evidence, perspectives and challenges

The first meeting of specialists from different fields relating to research on the Roman army in Hispania took place in Segovia in 1998 under the title “Roman Military Archaeology in Hispania”. Its aim was to gather within one forum different experts working in this field.1 The term “military archaeology” was provocative in the Spanish academic world of the late 1990s, as military studies were viewed with slight suspicion in some quarters, both by those researching indigenous contexts and by those who remained anchored in a classical concept of Romanisation which rather neglected the contribution of the army to the process of assimilating Hispania into the Roman world. In Anglo-Saxon scholarship other terms with more historiographic tradition (e.g., “Roman army studies” or “Roman frontier studies”) were preferred. The goal in choosing the title of the 1998 congress was to create debate around a topic on which research efforts were becoming increasingly focused. Despite its limitations,2 the term “military archaeology” since then has become for many Spanish scholars the methodological basis for material-based and topographic studies of the military world and of war in its widest sense. As archaeology in the Iberian peninsula becomes increasingly open to new methodologies and practices being adopted elsewhere (especially in the Anglo-Saxon world), similar terms such as “conflict archaeology” or “battlefield archaeology” are appearing, which all form part of the conceptual frame of reference of military archaeology. In the last 15-20 years, research in this field has increased exponentially in the Iberian peninsula, particularly in the north and northwest where the Roman army had a much longer-lasting presence. This has allowed scholars, for example, to begin interpreting episodes such as the Cantabrian Wars, practically unknown from an archaeological perspective until very recently. In the last few years, progress has extended to earlier periods, affecting other regions such as the peninsula‘s northeast, southeast and E coast, where military topics are starting to be differentiated into Republican and indigenous contexts. A new generation of congresses and their resulting proceedings have generated some of the most significant contributions. The Segovia congress of 1998, its follow-up at León in 2004,3 the Roman Frontier Congress held at León in 2006,4 thematic French-Spanish congresses such as the meetings of the project “La guerre et ses traces dans la péninsule Ibérique” (2007, 2009 and 2010),5 and recent colloquia on the Republican period6 and on the Cantabrian Wars,7 have all become reference works. Coinciding with the first occasion upon which the Roman Frontier Congress was held in Spain, the first monograph — still an essential reference work — on the archaeological evidence for the Roman army in the peninsula was published.8

Developing a New Perspective on Dura’s Military Base

This research project arose, as many do, from an intersection of personal research interests and fieldwork opportunity. At its inception, I had already been working on material from Dura for twenty years, principally writing my PhD on the remarkable finds of (mostly Roman) arms and military equipment from the site, resulting in Final Report 7. I originally came to Dura as a Roman military archaeology specialist, but was acutely aware of my limited grounding in the specifics of the archaeology and history of the region. However, it is also clear that study of so huge and complex a data set as that from Dura must be a team effort involving many specialists from a wide array of disciplines and backgrounds, all of whom may bring outside perspectives potentially illuminating to the whole. My collaboration with MFSED began with an invitation from Pierre Leriche to examine some newly found items of military equipment. Spending time at Dura permitted an extended examination of the city, the Sasanian siege works, and Roman countermeasures (resulting in a publication on the Tower 19 complex, and indications of use of a ‘chemical weapon’ in the fighting: James 2011b), and especially of the military base where the soldiers whose equipment I had studied through artefacts and iconography had mostly lived. As previously mentioned, the base was not a primary research objective of MFSED. However, a project on the fixed infrastructure of the garrison would form a logical follow-on to my study of its martial material culture in FR 7. Contributing to MFSED’s general aims of recording and publishing the city’s remains, and to wider Dura scholarship, it also offered the chance to publish arguably the most important revealed but incompletely studied Roman military site in the empire. Further, this intra-urban military base constituted an ideal opportunity to pursue my own wider research interest, in how the Roman military interacted with civilian populations. At an early stage in my research career, I had come to believe that the Roman military could only be understood in context, of Roman society as a whole, and of the peoples it fought, conquered, and settled amongst.

La presencia del ejército romano en las montañas de El Bierzo (León): novedades arqueológicas.

ResumenEn las últimas dos décadas, la Arqueología militar romana ha experimentado un notable avance en la península ibérica. El uso sistemático de nuevas técnicas de teledetección constituye el último estadio de un proceso de renovación metodológica que ha permitido documentar un numeroso conjunto de yacimientos arqueológicos inéditos, o bien relacionar otros ya conocidos con el ejército romano. A su vez, esta información inédita ha subrayado la necesidad de desarrollar nuevas narrativas arqueológicas sobre los procesos de conquista y ocupación del Noroeste peninsular en tiempos antiguos. Este trabajo analiza tres nuevos yacimientos de reciente descubrimiento que pueden ayudarnos a entender estos procesos en El Bierzo, una comarca estratégica en las comunicaciones entre el Noroeste ibérico y la cuenca del Duero.AbstractRoman military archaeology has experienced a remarkable advance in the Iberian Peninsula during the last decades. The systematic use of remote sensing techniques is the latest stage in a process of methodological renovation that has helped to identify a significant number of new archaeological sites, or to link other already known sites with the Roman army. In addition, these new data have highlighted the need to develop renovated archaeological narratives on the conquest and occupation processes of NW Iberia in the Antiquity. In this paper, we analyse three recently discovered sites, which will help us to understand these phenomena in El Bierzo, a strategic region connecting NW Iberia and the Duero valley.

Archaeological Research in Pskov and Pskov Region in 2016

В статье представлен обзор основных направлений деятельности псковских археологов в 2016 году. Охарактеризованы основные аспекты работ, направленных на сохранение археологических памятников, расположенных на территории Пскова и Псковской области. Площадь археологических раскопок в городе Пскове составляла более 5000 кв. м (раскопки в Кремле, на Завеличье, в центре города, за пределами крепостных стен на посаде) и в Псковской области (археологические раскопки курганной группы Смоленка недалеко от города Остров, курганная группа на восточной окраине деревни Изборск (Усть-Смолка); археологическая разведка в Новосокольническом районе с целью фиксации поселения Х-Х1 в. Горожане, в Красногородском районе (определение границ могильника возле села Станкеево), в Гдовском районе; по трассе ВЛ-330 «Новосокольники - Талашкино» (Псковская и Смоленская области). Проведено определение границ территории объекта культурного наследия «Культурный слой города Великие Луки». Продолжилась разработка направления «военная археология». The article presents an overview of the main activities of Pskov archaeologists in 2016. The main aspects of the works aimed at preserving archaeological sites located on the territory of Pskov and Pskov region are characterized. The Area of archaeological excavations in the city of Pskov was more than 5000 sq. m. (the excavations in the Kremlin, on Zavelich’e, in the Middle Town, outside the fortress walls on the posad) and in the Pskov region (archaeological excavations of the barrow group Smolenka near the town Ostrov, the barrow group on the eastern edge of the village Izborsk (“Ust-Smolka”); archaeological search in Novosokol’nicheskiy district with the goal of the identification of the X-XIth c. Gopozhane settlement, in Krasnogorodsk district (identificaton of the boundaries of the ground burial near the village Stankeevo), in Gdov district; on the highway VL-330 “Novosokolniki - Talashkino” (Pskov and Smolensk regions territory). The definition of the boundaries of the territory of the object of cultural heritage “Cultural layer of the city of Velikie Luki” was performed. The research area of “military archaeology” was continued.

Stargate SG-1

This chapter develops the central thesis of Chapter 1, namely that paramilitary archaeology is a means of invoking then containing dangerous pasts as an imaginative extension of U.S. foreign policy. Aired in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, Stargate (1994) translates the colonial milieu of 1930s Egyptology to the science fictional terrain of Abydos and the battle against Ra. But the shift to the small screen's televisual identity is symptomatic of the deepening complexities of representing geopolitical activity in the region. Just as archaeology passes from a source of wonder into a vehicle for military adventure, the show's ideological commitments to global (read intra-galactic) security become increasingly destabilized, particularly in the Mesopotamian-themed episodes aired after 9/11. The mercurial figure of Babylon offers a counterpoint to the film's overlay of archaeology and militarism, and indeed to the rhetoric of military stewardship at the heart of the "military-archaeology complex." The shifting representation of Mesopotamian antiquity in SG-1's ten-year run (1997-2007) offers powerful cultural criticism of the show's own premise.

PERANG PASIFIK DI PULAU MOROTAI: Rekonstruksi Infrastruktur dan Strategi Perang

Pacific war in Morotai is an important historical event in Indonesia as well as in the world. The Pacific war involving two major powers, the Allies and Japan, left a trail of archaeological studies examined to record a very important historical event in the Pacific region of Morotai Island. Based on the concept of military archaeology, this study uses archaeological data to reconstruct infrastructure and allied strategies in combat against Japan. Investigation of these remains proceeded through studying textual and photographic records on the Allies' occupation of Morotai Island, and examination of modern-day aerial photographs of the terrain where the Allies built their infrastructure, followed by archaeological survey and through interviewing local residents to describe traces of the Pacific war infrastructure. The results explain that the preparation of good infrastructure by the allies is part of the war strategy, which determines the win for the allies against the Japanese.Perang pasifik di Morotai merupakan peristiwa sejarah yang penting di Indonesia dan juga di dunia. Perang Pasifik yang melibatkan dua kekuatan besar, Sekutu dan Jepang, meninggalkan jejak arkeologi peperangan yang dikaji untuk merekam peristiwa sejarah yang sangat penting di kawasan pasifik di Pulau Morotai. Berdasarkan konsep military archaeology, penelitian ini menggunakan data arkeologi untuk merekonstruksi infrastruktur dan strategi sekutu dalam pertempuran melawan Jepang. Investigasi arkeologi dilakukan dengan mempelajari catatan tekstual dan fotografis tentang pendudukan Pulau Morotai oleh Sekutu, dan pemeriksaan foto-foto udara modern di daerah Sekutu membangun infrastruktur, dan selanjutnya melakukan survei arkeologi dan wawancara penduduk setempat untuk menggambarkan jejak infrastrukutr perang pasifik. Hasil penelitian menjelaskan bahwa penyiapan insfrastruktur dengan baik oleh pihak sekutu merupakan bagian dari strategi perang, yang menentukan kemenangan bagi pihak sekutu dalam melawan Jepang.