Back to Basics: A trip to Prishtina's museum

Back to Basics: A trip to Prishtina's museum

Prishtina's museum is a place where we keep in safe custody the valuable and historic things of the past. Those things tell us how our forefathers lived and worked. It was an interesting experience because I got to see the collection of rare things and things of historical interest. With the existence of the museums we study the old things and we come to know much of  our history and culture of bygone ages. We see all the things of past and present at one place.

Photo taken by: Getuarda Kabashi

Visiting the Prishtina's Museum was a wonderful experience. I got to see and sort of make the comparison with today's tools but it's understandable because we're comparing different periods of time, for example, the clay pots that they made themselves are quite different from the pots we use now, because in today's age our pots are made from modern machinery. Of course, a lot of time has passed since then, but seeing the process through the years was quite mesmerising. In this trip to the museum, I learned that green glaze was not used until the Middle Ages. This glaze was used to varnish the inside of the pot for a better and cleaner use. By better I mean it was more sanitary. Also, in order to decorate the pots they used different techniques, some of them being the most basic ones, for example, they used fingernails to create the design. Another worth mentioning technique that I got to witness was the comb technique. When they would use the comb to create artistic lines on the pot.

The pot with the comb technique 

Photo taken by: Kristina Hamza 

Another interesting thing was that superstitions were present even in the Middle Neolithic period. They used to create a specific type of pots that were used for the purpose of removing the evil eye. The pots had different forms from the regular ones and were smaller. Also, people back then used to believe that the dead should be buried the same way a baby is positioned in the womb. In the museum I had the chance to see the remains of a tomb with that kind of burial, something I've never seen before.

Lastly, something that is worth mentioning is that I learned something new, something I've never heard before. It was the portrait of Mother Teresa, but not just any portrait. This one was made out of 1.5 million paper clips. This piece of art has entered the Guinness book of records ten times, and of course the author of beautiful piece of art is Albanian, Saimir Strati, and  I felt really proud while I was watching the portrait. I felt proud not only for the fact that has entered the Guinness book but the portrait has a deep meaning behind it when you know what the Lady in the portrait has achieved. Not only she helped the poor, she received  the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work.

Mother Teresa's portrait 

Photo taken by: Kristina Hamza 

Overall, the trip to the museum was a fun experience and I got to learn much more than I imagined, seeing whatever was left of those valuable things made me realise how fast time goes by and how in the near future we will become the past too. Maybe the future generations will look upon our present technology and will find it funny and interesting, who knows!

Photo taken by: Getuarda Kabashi 

Kristina Hamza