Učenje da se vidi glasinački ćilibar

Sažetak

The paper addresses previous research into the amber finds from Glasinac, reaching back to the end of the 19th century, as well as some of the author’s own extensive study of this material conducted in 1980s. The method of auto-reflexivity as an epistemological tool is applied, enabling the monitoring of the process of acquisition and validity of archaeological knowledge, and contributing to the better understanding of traditions influencing individual research, processes of socialization of individual researchers, the choice of research objectives, problems and methodology. The paper builds upon auto-reflexive works of Staša Babić, who states that the scrutiny of one’s own practice contributes to understanding and improving the practice of entire discipline. On the other hand, the author applies the method of re-evaluation of old evidence as suggested by Alison Wylie and Robert Chapman. Old evidence, with its many layers, may also contribute to a new insight into the archaeological practice and data. The paper focuses upon the strategies of critique and usage of old evidence that, according to Chapman and Wylie, enable us to raise some of the seemingly closed issues of archaeological interpretation and to reanimate the dormant data: secondary retrieval or renewal, re-contextualization, and experimental modelling. The paper examines several layers of old evidence: 1. the oldest layer of the papers published by Truhelka, Fiala and Stratimirović by the end of the 19th century; 2. the documentation concerning Glasinac kept at the Landesmusem, Sarajevo, especially the folder “From diadem to pin” and its section “Berries E” (amber), whose authorship is uncertain; 3. the reconstruction of Glasinac grave inventories and their chronological attribution, published in 1957 by Alojz Benac and Borivoj Čović; 4. the published data on recent excavations at Glasinac; 5. the author’s own secondary evidence, created and re-contextualized in 1984, on the base of the previous, which itself gained the status of old evidence.
The starting point of the paper is the evidence on amber from the Landesmuseum, Sarajevo and the statistical overview of the amber from Glasinac. The author’s own work on the amber from Novi Pazar, kept in the National Museum in Belgrade, is offered as an example of “learning to see” on the base of the old evidence and the re-contextualization of the archaeological material (sensu Chapman and Wylie). On the grounds of the old evidence from the Sarajevo Museum and the new insights into the Iron Age amber, based upon the analysis of the material from Novi Pazar and the recent finds from Southern Italy, especially from Basilicata, the author suggests – as a methodological example – a re-evaluation of a number of amber finds from the burial mounds at Osovo and Sjeversko. The suggestion is put forward that a future more detailed analysis of the old evidence and the amber beads themselves and other jewellery from these mounds, as well as other sites from Glasinac dated into the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. may enable a more accurate reconstruction of the amber ornaments from the region. The contacts may also be more closely investigated with Southern Italy, as well as with the regions east of the river Drina, especially with the elite of these communities, buried in the princely graves at Novi Pazar and Atenica.