Following on from last weeks news where an ancient town was unearthed not far from Divjake, another exciting discovery has been made, this time not far from Korce.
Turan is an area of rich, agricultural land in the south-east of Albania and recent gas pipeline construction has given archaeologists with a surprising discovery. For a country that was once off the radar of historians and archaeologists due to the isolation of communist rule, there is now over 5000 years of history to catch up on.
Excavations have been taking place over the last 18 months and during this time, the biggest ancient cemetery in Albania was found, comprising of over 1000 layered burials. Underneath the layers of tombs, some of which were richly furnished lie traces of an exceptionally rare Neolithic settlement. Its presence was ascertained from holes in the ground that would have once supported the wooden skeletons of huts.
To date, over 20 Neolithic sites have been found throughout Albania dating from between 7000 BC and 3000 BC which make them some of the earliest farming settlements in Europe. Iris Pojani, the lead archaeologist on the Turan excavations stated that the gas pipeline project gave them a unique opportunity to explore the area, finding the tombs was just the “cherry on the cake”.
The excavation took place over an area of 4000 square meters and Pojani and her tea found a total of three cemeteries from the Iron Age, late Roman times, and the Middle Ages. As of yet, there have been no traces found of the settlements that these cemeteries would have served but Pojani stated it wasn’t hard to see why people chose to live there.
“Even nowadays this is a prosperous agricultural area,” she said.
Items found in the graves include earrings, bracelets, rings, glass and amber beads, gold coins, and a lot of pottery that was similar to wine jugs found in neighbouring Greece. Medieval caskets, clothes worked with silver thread, spears, knives, and swords were also found at the site.
Located 180km from the capital of Tirana, Turan is now the most important of around 30 other sites that were discovered during the laying of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline that will bring natural gas from Azerbaijan to Southern Italy, via Turkey, Greece and Albania. In Albania, it covers a distance of 215 km but as digging is completed, it is not expected that any more remains will be discovered.
Arber Kadia, TAP Cultural Heritage Monitor said;
“We will leave something that is not just a momentary passage of gas but the cultural heritage that people will pass on.”
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