Abstract
The subject to be considered here poses insurmountable problems of definition, since both Byzantium and Albania are concepts which change in a chameleon-like manner during the period under consideration.1 The ‘Byzantines’ for instance would have referred to themselves as Romans (Romaioi), and unless the ‘Albanoi’ referred to by Ptolemy in the second century AD as inhabiting the area which is now central Albania were the ancestors of the later Albanians, the term ‘Albanian’ itself would not necessarily have meant very much to anyone living in the area between the fourth and eleventh centuries. The problem has been well recognised before, and Albania in particular is very difficult to define in either ethnological or geographical terms. Thus Popović2 could write:
Parler du territoire de l’Albanie actuelle au crépuscule de l’Antiquité est pour des raisons diverses, une tâche aussi difficile qu’ingrate.
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Notes
M. Gough, ‘The Emperor Zeno and some Cilician Churches’, Anatolian Studies 22 (1972), pp. 199–216.
For a general survey see A. Meksi, ‘L’architecture paléochrétienne en Albanie’, Monumentet, 30 (1985), pp. 13–44.
A fine example of a ‘Theodosian’ capital with dove protomes was found in the ‘Kuppelbasilika’ at Meryemlik, near Silifke (see Ernst Herzfeld and Samuel Guyer, Meriamlik und Korykos, zwei Christliche Ruinenstätten des Rauhen Kilikiens, Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, vol. 2 (Manchester, 1930), p. 60.
A. Baçe, ‘Fortifications de la Basse Antiquité en Albanie’, Monumentet, 11 (1976), pp. 45–74.
G. Karaiskaj, ‘La citadelle d’Elbasan’, Monumentet, 1 (1971), pp. 61–77
N. Çeka, ‘Archaeological Survey of the Elbasan Region’, Monumentet, 3 (1972), pp. 7–33.
See especially Rey, ‘Les remparts de Durazzo’, Albania — Revue d’archéologie (1925), pp. 33 ff; K. Zheku, ‘Découvertes épigraphiques sur les murs d’enceinte de la citadelle de Durrës’, Monumentet, 3 (1972), pp. 35–46
A. Ducellier, ‘Nouvelle essai de mise au point sur l’apparition du peuple albanais dans les sources historiques byzantines’, Studia Albanica, 2 (1972), pp. 300–6.
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© 1992 Tom Winnifrith
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Hill, S. (1992). Byzantium and the Emergence of Albania. In: Winnifrith, T. (eds) Perspectives on Albania. Warwick Studies in the European Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22050-2_4
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