[ALBSA-Info] Important archeological discovery

[Agron Alibali]

2,000-year-old shrine in Croatia
Archaeologists believe they are the first to set foot
in ancient Illyrian sanctuary since Romans

First-timers.
Members of the team work around the Illyrian shrine
deep inside the cave near Spila. The cave contains
layers of 

material 

dating from as far back as Neolithic times, 6,000
years ago.

By Davor Huic 

Reuters

ZAGREB - An international team of archaeologists has
uncovered what may be a pre-Roman pagan shrine that
has lain undisturbed beneath the hills of southern
Croatia for more than 2,000 years. 

The Croatian-Canadian team says the site, dating from
the third century BC, is the only shrine of the
ancient Illyrian people ever found. 

They believe they are the first people to have set
foot in it since it was sealed up as Rome's legions
marched across Europe. 

The dramatic discovery was made deep inside a cave at
Spila, near the village of Nakovana on the Peljesac
peninsula in southern Dalmatia, about 100km (60 miles)
northwest of the Adriatic city of Dubrovnik. 

Pottery and a huge phallic stalagmite in the cave
indicate that it was used as a shrine. 

"We believe that the center of the cave served as an
altar for some pagan ritual, probably linked to
fertility or potency," Dr. Staso Forenbaher of the
Croatian Institute for Anthropological Research told
Reuters. 

"To our knowledge, this is the only Illyrian sanctuary
ever found," he added. 

The Illyrians inhabited the western Balkans before the
Romans conquered the region and were assimilated by
migrating Slavic tribes in the early Middle Ages.
Albanians are their only modern descendants. 

Forenbaher and Dr. Timothy Kaiser of the Royal Ontario
Museum discovered deeper channels in the Spila cave
almost by accident, during excavations at the entrance
in August 1999. They returned a year later to lead the
project. 

The cave contains several layers of archaeological
material dating from the early neolithic era, 6,000
years BC. The most valuable findings were hidden
behind a mass of stones and earth deep inside. 

Forenbaher said he believed the entrance might have
been sealed on purpose at some point during the first
century BC, at the time of the Roman conquest,
possibly to prevent the sanctity of the site from
being violated. 

"It looked completely intact. The surface was crusty,
and there was no evidence whatsoever that any human or
animal had walked there for centuries," said
Forenbaher. 

The fact that the shrine has been completely untouched
for two millennia makes its significance even greater.


"Hopefully, this will give us a chance to try to
reconstruct what had been going on there," Forenbaher
said. 

As the team went into the cave, a corridor 50 meters
(164 feet) in length and tall enough for a person to
stand up in, opened up roughly in the middle of a
circular area about 10 meters (32 feet) in diameter. 

In the middle of this stood a 60cm (two-feet) tall red
and white stalagmite in the form of a phallus. The
team believe it played a central role in whatever
rituals went on in the cave when it was used as a
shrine. 

"We dug around and under the stalagmite and found that
it had not grown there naturally. It had to be brought
in from someplace else - perhaps even from the cave
itself - to be installed there by humans," Forenbaher
said. 

Scattered around were hundreds of pieces of
Hellenistic pottery, mostly plates and chalices, some
of them bearing inscriptions in ancient Greek and
Latin. Their function and position around the phallus
indicate they were used in some sort of a ritual that
included feasting, drinking and probably making
offerings to pagan gods. 

Most pieces seem to have originated from Magna Graecia
- Greek colonies in southern Italy - and from Greek
settlements in the southern Dalmatian islands of
Korcula (Korcyra Nigra), Hvar (Pharos) and Vis (Issa).
The team dug out about three tonnes of material from
the cave, taking everything they could find to the
Dubrovnik Archaeology Museum for further research,
Forenbaher said. 

They also found containers with what looked like
remains of food that will be sent to Britain to be
analyzed, while radioactive carbon dating will be done
in Croatia. 

More than 100kg (200 lb) of collected pottery will be
sorted out and put together by local experts. 

"We expect first reports to come out within a year,
and the whole project to take three years," Forenbaher
said


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