Idea or interpretation

Abstract

In the national archaeologies formed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia there emerged new reflections of old archaeological ideas, especially about the ethnogenesis and identity of the Illyrians, topics which dominated Yugoslav archaeology. The new ideas varied from those which continued and reaffirmed older theories to those which attempted to deconstruct them, among which the most influential was that of Danijel Džino. The topic of our paper – how the initial archaeological knowledge about the Illyrians was created – adds another component in deconstructing of Illyrians. The paper analyses the first and most massive excavations at Glasinac in the 19th century which served as an empirical base for creating the narrative of the Illyrian Glasinac and Illyrians in Yugoslav archaeology in the 1950s and 1960s.