A trip to the past

 

In this blog, I am going to be talking about my first visit to the Museum of Kosovo which is located in Prishtina. I am also going to try and describe some of the most interesting things that were displayed in the museum.

I always think about time traveling and being able to either go back in the past or visit the future, and for me, it was possible to go back without needing to time travel. I was able to go back in the past with just a quick visit to the Museum of Kosovo.

Photo taken by Ilirida Kamberi

This was my first time visiting this museum and I can say that it won’t be the last. I was impressed by all the different pots that were found and the different techniques that were used to make them. Everything was put in chronological order so you could tell how the pots got better and prettier in time.

Something  that was interesting was that even in Neolithic times people used to believe in superstitions, Illyrians even used to make masks to put on top of their pots to protect them and themselves from the evil eye.

I also got to see Prishtina’s  symbol “Goddess on the Throne” or like we call it “Hynesha në fron” which is a small figurine that represents a female goddess. I have always seen pictures of it in different places in Prishtina but seeing it up close was a great feeling.

The museum also displayed the remains of a person who was buried in a fetal position. The docent explained that Illyrians buried people in that way to explain that we die in the same way that we are born. I thought that was very interesting so it stuck with me.

I didn’t like that some of the objects that were exposed in the museum weren’t even the original ones. They were both taken by Serbia and kept there, or they were sold in the black market. One of these objects was “Vrapuesja e Prizrenit” this piece represents that women also used to do sports. Unfortunately this piece was only a copy because the original one was sold in the black market and is displayed in a museum in Great Britain.

Everywhere I walked I could see pieces of history, there were different weapons, different accessories like rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, hairbrushes etc, which were found in graves. I also got to see different coins and they all had different emperors carved on them so you could tell from which time these coins are. Something worth mentioning is “Medaljoni i Probit”. This medallion is dedicated to the Illyrian emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus and is unique.  Also “Antikiteti Dradan” which is a burial ceremony carved in a stone, where you can see people holding the corpse, and also people mourning for the dead person.

The museum also displayed some small glass bottles that in Neolithic periods people buried them with people you loved. When someone very dear died they cried and  gathered the tears in those bottles and buried it with them, so you can express the sorrow and the mourning for that person.

By visiting this museum I understood how important museums are and how important it is to visit them. I learned a lot of new things about our ancestors Illyrian’s history, and I also got to see how Albanians developed over centuries. If it wasn’t for museums I feel like we would lose our connection with the past.

Fjolla Behramaj