Archaeology in Albania after Kosovo
In the 50 years after its opening in 1948 by dictator Enver Hoxhe, Albania's Institute of Archaology is now suffering from a funding shortage, but is still maintinaing its work and museum.
In these years there was a sense of romantic purpose to the activities of the Institute. As many as fifty excavation campaigns were mounted in any one year, and Hoxhe himself took a personal interest in the archaeological discoveries. When Nikita Khruschev pressed Hoxhe to create a submarine base in Lake Butrint involving the destruction of the fine Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins there, he haughtily refused, condemning the Soviet leader’s ignorance of history.
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