Albania??

Albania?  First associations: isolated, Illyrian pirates, and Zog.  For most of my life, Albania has been the place northwest of Greece that was closed to the outside world.  Illyrian pirates I know about because they always come up in the seafaring course that I teach; their infamy comes down to us through Roman sources -- ruthless but most able seafarers, the stuff of Roman nightmares.  And Zog, I have no idea why I know this name, but it is a name that sticks in the memory.

Now I have read a bit and can say a little more.  Albania reopened to the west only in the early 1990s; in the half-century since WW II, its closest ties were with Russia, then China, and after 1978 increasingly isolated from any outside contact.  The early 1990s were years of tremendous economic, political, and social upheaval.  But things have calmed in this recent decade and the trickle of western archaeologists coming to Albania to establish collaborative projects with their Albanian colleagues is growing into a flood.  So I am arriving at a propitious time.  

About the pirates -- I shall save that for another posting.

But before I sign off, about Zog.  Full name Ahmet Zogu. A clan chief from the northern central Albania who eventually became president with absolute powers. Crowned himself Zog I, King of the Albanians, in 1928.  Fled Albania ten years later, when Mussolini annexed the country.  He never returned.  His wife did; she died in Tirana in 2002.  I would have liked to sit down to tea with her -- what stories she had seen!

The adventure begins Mon 11th.  More then...