Meet the Goddess of Prishtina
Altina Ramadani
24.05.2022

Photo by: Edona Mehmeti

Everyone has a story about their first memorable encounter with art, mine is with museums. Going to museums as a kid seemed very interesting to me but it’s not that I could understand history that much. What grabbed my attention was always the visuals and how people used to be so creative artistically. I’ve visited The Museum of Kosovo, located in Prishtina years ago but never with my friends.

On Tuesday, the 24^th of May I got to experience it differently with them.

What I first noticed that I hadn’t when being a kid, was the lock of one of the doors outside. It was the bust of a goddess. The curiosity made me want to go inside even more.

As soon as we arrived at the main entrance, there was the description of the museum and the bust of the goddess in the right corner was too.

As we went in, one of the guides welcomed us and started asking about the aim of our visit of the museum. She first thought that we were students from the archeology field and were doing a research on artefacts. She was a little bit surprised by our answer.

Before starting to learn more about the museum, we asked for permission to take pictures which was not allowed. We panicked since we needed them for our blog and told her. She decided to ask someone and they gave us permission.

Starting with the goddess in the first floor of the museum, we learned the story of how it came to be the symbol of the capital city- Prishtina as well.

The very first “Goddess on the Throne” was found in the bus station of the city. The figure in question represents a female deity, reflecting the cult of the great idol of the mother. The Museum of Kosovo has adapted the image of the "Goddess on the Throne" as the logo of the special institution. Moreover, as it is one of the most precious archaeological artefacts of Kosovo, it has been adopted as the symbol of Prishtina. Now I knew the meaning behind the lock of that door.

We got to know how people used to be buried in prehistory times.

You will be buried just as you were born I would say. People were buried in the position of the baby in the womb of their mother. Impressive.

Antiquity was a time rich with history back then. The bust of the Dardanian Goddess was carved in marble.

The most interesting part about this age is that people used to save their tears to show how sad they are for someone they lost. Yes. They saved them in some tear catchers called “Lacrimaria” which were made of glass. The bigger the glass, the more you would cry. You would show more respect if you filled a bigger one for the person in question. Depending on who the person was, people chose whether it would be big or not…

When going up to the second floor of the museum, you will be amazed by this huge mosaic hung on the wall.

The mosaic of the National Museum of Kosovo with the portrait of Mother Teresa, is a work of the artist from Albania, Saimir Strati, and it has officially entered the world Guinness Book of Records. I was astonished by that huge number of wire clamps used in the mosaic...

Art is beautiful!

If you want the rest of the History of Kosovo, I encourage you to take a detailed look at the following pictures…