ANCIENT WEST & EAST

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95066_AWE11_2012_Voorwerk.indd II 23/10/12 11:56
 ANCIENT WEST & EAST

VOLUME 11

2012

PEETERS
LEUVEN – PARIS – WALPOLE, MA

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 ISSN 1783-8363
e-ISSN 1783-8398

© 2012, Peeters Publishers, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form,
by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means
without written permission from the publisher.

PRINTED IN BELGIUM

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARTICLES

J.M. KELDER, Horseback Riding and Cavalry in Mycenaean Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

S.A. RICH, ‘She who Treads on Water’: Religious Metaphor in Seafaring Phoenicia 19
M. DAMYANOV, Normative and Non-Normative Burial Practices in the Necropoleis
of the Greek Colonies in the Western Black Sea Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
D. DZINO, Contesting Identities of Pre-Roman Illyricum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
S.M. BURSTEIN, Whence the Woman?: The Origin of the Bactrian Greeks . . . . . . . 97
M.N. WEISKOPF, Heraos, Holding the Tyranny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
J. BOARDMAN, The East Asian Relief Plaques: Central Asia and the West . . . . . . . . 123
A. MADDEN, A Revised Date for the Mosaic Pavements of the Church of Nativity,
Bethlehem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

BOOK DISCUSSION

Local Responses to Colonisation

C. ULF, on ‘Local Responses’ and Cultural Actors, or: the Creator of the Iliad as a
Cultural Actor – the Iliad as a ‘Local Response’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
A.J. DOMÍNGUEZ, Local Responses to Colonisation: Some Additional Perspectives . 205
E. KISTLER, Glocal Responses from Archaic Sicilly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
M. SOMMER, Heart of Darkness? Post-Colonial Theory and the Transformation of
the Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
T. HODOS, Paradigm Shifts in Mediterranean Archaeology: a Response to the
Discussion on Hodos, Local Responses to Colonization in the Iron Age Mediter-
ranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

NOTES

G. DINARLI, Observations on a Bronze Snake Figurine Found at Oluz Höyük, Amasya

North-Central Anatolia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
A. AVRAM, Some Remarks on Newly Published Inscriptions from Pessinus . . . . . . . 271

REVIEWS

West and East: A Review Article (11) (G.R. Tsetskhladze) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

The Copenhagen Polis Centre: A Review Article of its Publications – Epilogue
(M.H. Hansen [ed.], The Return of the Polis) (T.J. Figueira) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
The Contexts of Ancient Sculpture
(E. D’Ambra and G.P.R. Métraux [eds.], The Art of Citizens, Soldiers and
Freedmen in the Roman World; R.R.R. Smith, Roman Portrait Statuary from

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 VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

Aphrodisias; L.R. Brody, The Aphrodite of Aphrodisias; I.B. Romano, Classical

Sculpture) (O. Doonan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Two New Volumes of Prähistorische Bronzefunde
(D. Brandherm, Las Espadas del Bronce Final en la Península Ibérica y Baleares;
S. Gerloff, Atlantic Cauldrons and Buckets) (J. Bouzek) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Recent Publications on Assur
P. Werner, Der Sîn-Samas-Tempel in Assur; S. Lundström, Die Königsgrüfte im
Alten Palast von Assur; H.U. Onasch, Ägyptische und assyrische Alabastergefäße aus
Assur) (D.T. Potts). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
C. Adams, Land Transport in Roman Egypt (C. Vout) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
S. Atasoy, Bronze Lamps in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (L. Chrzanovski) . . . 304
R.S. Badalyan and P.S. Avetisyan, Bronze and Early Iron Age Archaeological Sites in
Armenia (A.T. Smith) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
J. Banaji, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity. Gold, Labour, and Aristocratic Dominance
(P. Doukellis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
P.F. Bang, The Roman Bazaar (W. Anderson). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (A.V. Korolenkov) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
R. Beck, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire (T. Kaizer) . . . . . . . . 313
M. Bentz and C. Reusser, Marzabotto (R. Roth) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
R. Bichler, Historiographie-Ethnographie-Utopie (E. Irwin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
T. Boiy, Between High and Low (E.M. Anson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
G.W. Bowersock, Mosaics as History (P. Donceel-Voûte) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
L. Bricault, M.J. Versluys and P.G.P. Meyboom (eds.), Nile into Tiber (J.G. Manning) 323
J. Buckler and H. Beck, Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century
BC (K. Vlassopoulos). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
E. Christof, G. Koiner, M. Lehner and E. Pochmarski (eds.), POTNIA THERON
(M. Eugenia de la Nuez) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
L. Chrzanovski, L’urbanisme des villes romaines de Transpadane (A. Bravi) . . . . . . . . . 328
A. Çilingiroglu and A. Sagona (eds.), Anatolian Iron Ages 6 (R. Matthews) . . . . . . . . 330
B.J. Collins, The Hittites and Their World (H. Genz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
B.J. Collins, M.R. Bachvarova and I.C. Rutherford (eds.), Anatolian Interfaces
(R. Matthews) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
P. Collins, From Egypt to Babylon (R. Matthews). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
C. Constantakopoulou, The Dance of the Islands (T.J. Figueira) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
C.E. Cordova, Millennial Landscape Change in Jordan (S. Bourke) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
P. de Jersey (ed.), Celtic Coinage (S.A. Kovalenko). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
E. Diez, Kunstprovinzen im römischen Imperium. (A.J.M. Kropp) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
P.A. Dimitrov, Thracian Language and Greek and Thracian Epigraphy (D. Dana) . . . 344
S. Dmitriev, City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (T. Kaizer). . . . . 347
A.M. Eckstein, Rome Enters the Greek East (M. Sommer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
J. Eiring and J. Lund (eds.), Transport Amphorae and Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean
(M. Fischer). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
P. Erdkamp, The Grain Market in the Roman Empire (J.G. Manning). . . . . . . . . . . . 351
A. Feldherr (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to The Roman Historians (A. Turner). . 354

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS VII

A. Filges, Skulpturen und Statuenbasen (J. Lenaghan). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Focusing on Iron Age Élites (N. Theodossiev) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
J.F.D. Frakes, Framing Public Life (R. Tomlinson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
K. Freitag, P. Funke and M. Haake (eds.), Kult-Politik-Ethnos (K. Strobel). . . . . . . . 360
A. Giovannini, Les relations entre États dans la Grèce antique (J. Vela Tejada) . . . . . . 363
D.M. Gwynn (ed.), A.H.M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire (T. Lewit) . . . . . . . . 365
W.V. Harris (ed.), The Monetary System of the Greeks and Romans (S.A. Kovalenko) 367
H. Heinen (ed.), Menschenraub, Menschenhandel und Sklaverei in antiker und moderner
Perspektive (I. Weiler) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
W. Held, Gergakome (R. Tomlinson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
L.A. Hitchcock, Theory for Classics (A. Zuiderhoek) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
A.I. Ivantchik, Am Vorabend der Kolonisation (C. Meyer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
H. Jackson, Jebel Khalid on the Euphrates (M. von Mehren) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
M. Jevtic, M. Lazic and M. Sladic, The Zidovar Treasure (N. Theodossiev). . . . . . . . 378
D. Kacharava and G. Kvirkvelia, Wine, Worship, and Sacrifice (M. Treister) . . . . . . . 379
D. Kennet and P. Luft (eds.), Current Research in Sasanian Archaeology, Art and
History (A.D.H. Bivar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
M. Kerschner, I. Kowalleck and M. Steskal, Archäologische Forschungen zur Siedlungs-
geschichte von Ephesos (V. Gassner) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
D.E.E. Kleiner, Cleopatra and Rome (J.A. Evans). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
C. Koehn, Krieg – Diplomatie – Ideologie (K. Strobel) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
R. Köster, Die Bauornamentik der frühen und mittleren Kaiserzeit (M. Fischer) . . . . . 392
A.S. Lewin and P. Pellegrini (eds.), The Late Roman Army in the Near East from
Diocletian to the Arab Conquest (F. Millar). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
S. Lowenstam, As Witnessed by Images (N. T. de Grummond). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
C.C. Mattusch, A.A. Donohue and A. Brauer (eds.), Common Ground (N. Theo-
dossiev) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
L. Mihailescu-Bîrliba, Les affranchis dans les provinces romaines de l’Illyricum (J.G. de
Boer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
J. Mylonopoulos and H. Roeder (eds.), Archäologie und Ritual (J. Malek) . . . . . . . . . 404
T. Ñaco and I. Arrayás (eds.), War and Territory in the Roman World (M. Hernández
Martínez). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
G. Nicolini (ed.), Les Ors des Mondes Grec et “Barbare” (M. Treister) . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
W. Oberleitner, Das Partherdenkmal von Ephesos (R. Tomlinson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
D. Papaconstantinou (ed.), Deconstructing Context (M. Fischer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
E. Peltenburg and A. Wasse (eds.), Neolithic Revolution (D. Krsmanovic) . . . . . . . . . 414
P. Perkins, Etruscan Bucchero in the British Museum (N.T. de Grummond) . . . . . . . 416
S. von Reden, Money in Ptolemaic Egypt (S.A. Kovalenko). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
R. Rollinger, B. Gufler, M. Lang and I. Madreiter (eds.), Interkulturalität in der Alten
Welt (J. Boardman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
G. Roux(†) and J. Renger, Irak in der Antike (D.T. Potts). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
A. Schmidt-Colinet (ed.), Lokale Identitäten in Randgebieten des Römischen Reiches
(B. Hoffmann) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
D. Slootjes, The Governor and his Subjects in the Later Roman Empire (A. Gillett) . . . 423

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 VIII TABLE OF CONTENTS

M. Sommer, Roms orientalische Steppengrenze (K. Strobel). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

S. Stallibrass and R. Thomas (eds.), Feeding the Roman Army (B. Hoffmann) . . . . . . 429
A.I. Steinsapir, Rural Sanctuaries in Roman Syria (T. Kaizer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
E. Thomas, Monumentality and the Roman Empire (R. Raja) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
L. Török, Between Two Worlds (S.M. Burstein) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
A.A. Trofimova (ed.), Greeks on the Black Sea (S.A. Kovalenko) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
A. Verhoogt, Regaling Officials in Ptolemaic Egypt (J.G. Manning) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
R.-B. Wartke (ed.), Auf dem Weg nach Babylon (D.T. Potts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
A. Watson, Religious Acculturation and Assimilation in Belgic Gaul (M. Eugenia de
la Nuez). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
A. Weiß (ed.), Der imaginierte Nomade (M. Sommer). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
G. Wiplinger (ed.), Cura Aquarum in Ephesus (B. Anderson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Books Received . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

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doi: 10.2143/AWE.11.0.2175878 AWE 11 (2012) 69-95

CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF
PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM*
DANIJEL DZINO

Abstract
Research on pre-Roman identities in the western and central Balkan Peninsula is still await-
ing a shift of paradigm from the frameworks in which it operated in the later 20th century,
where it was seen as essentially static and primordial. This paper examines some identity-
construction strategies amongst the indigenous communities of this area in the later Iron
Age. It views the region as a zone where identities were actively negotiated between the
western La Tène and the eastern Mediterranean socio-cultural templates.

The identities of the pre-Roman populations of the central and western Balkan
Peninsula remains an insufficiently discussed topic in recent scholarship. Outside
the ‘Illyrian’ region (modern Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia,
Montenegro and Albania), and with the notable exception of J.J. Wilkes’s encom-
passing study, these indigenous groups have not been discussed comprehensively in
recent times.1 When they are, it is not unusual to see them as the ultimate ‘Others’
– strangers to the Greeks, Romans and even to one another.2 However, the corpus
of recent literature dealing with specific sub-regions or groups is growing slowly and
will soon reach a critical mass, enabling a long overdue shift of paradigm. It is worth
mentioning more advanced recent approaches to the interactions between local cul-
tures and Archaic Greece in the Central Balkans, and the reconsideration of Greek
contacts with indigenous populations in the Central Adriatic.3 Attention has been
focused primarily on the south-eastern Adriatic and the border regions with the
Greek world and Macedonia,4 while in the rest of the region the Iapodean culture,

* The research for this paper was financially supported by the Australian Research Council, as
part of an ARC Discovery Project. I would like to thank Dr Arianna Traviglia and the anonymous
readers for their useful comments.
1
Wilkes 1992 (cf. Cabanes 1988); Harding 1992. For up-to-date overviews, see Lippert 2004;
Sasel Kos 2005, 223–39; Pavic 2009; Dzino 2010a, 36–43; 2010b, 56–58.
2
Harding 1992, 15.
3
On the Early/Middle Iron Age in the Central Balkans, see Parzinger 1991; Theodossiev 1998;
2000; Palavestra 1998; Babic 2002; 2004; 2007; Palavestra and Babic 2003. On Greek contacts in
the Adriatic, see Kirigin 1990; Kirigin and Cace 1998; Forenbaher and Kaiser 2006; Cabanes 2008.
4
For example, Cabanes 1988; Galaty 2002; Siewert 2004; Prusac 2007; including Marijan 1999
for southern Dalmatia and eastern Herzegovina. There are also useful papers in the series of conference
proceedings L’Illyrie méridionale et l’Épire dans l’Antiquité, focusing mostly, but not exclusively, on
modern-day Albania.
70 D. DZINO

the La Tène communities in southern Pannonia and the south-eastern Alps region
have received more focused treatment.5
For a long time research on these groups was based upon different strategies that
aimed to accommodate material and palaeolinguistic (onomastic, anthroponymic)
evidence within the testimony provided by the ancient sources.6 This was com-
monly done by attempting to locate pre-Roman groups mentioned in literary
sources, most of which postdate Roman conquest. The term ‘Illyrians’ as a blanket
label for indigenous groups, although thoroughly challenged in the second part of
the 20th century, still impacts ways of thinking about the past and remains deeply
rooted in both scholarly and popular discourse.7 Another serious problem is the
continuing attempts to see the indigenous groups mentioned in literary sources as
distinctive ethnicities, ‘objectively’ distinguished by ancient outside observers, and
sometimes placed within archaeological cultures or onomastic groups. The devel-
opment of group identities is explained in the framework of ethnogenesis which, in
Eastern European scholarship, usually understand the longue durée process of their
social evolution and homogenisation. More advanced theoretical approaches, such
as the impact of power relationships on the construction of identities, or socio-
anthropological approaches to ethnicity as subjective social phenomena, are not
commonly used; even the most recent and well-informed reassessments of the
existing knowledge rely partially upon methodological frameworks widely known
as ‘culture-history’.8
This article aims broadly to outline and rethink some of the ways in which
indigenous communities were locally negotiating their identities between the La
Tène and Mediterranean global models of cultural and social organisation (Fig. 1),
and will focus on the period immediately before the Roman conquest, after
ca. 400 BC. These two models were rarely considered as comparable or comple-
mentary. The spread of La Tène in the valley of the Sava and in the central

5
For the Iapodean culture, see Raunig 2004; Balen-Letunic 2006; Olujic 2007; Dzino 2008a.
For La Tène in southern Pannonia, see Dizdar and Potrebica 2002; 2005; Majnaric-Pandzic 2009;
cf. Popovic 1996. On the Early Iron Age groups in northern Croatia, see Balen-Letunic 2004; in the
north-eastern Adriatic, see Blecic 2007b; and in the hinterland of Trieste, see Slapsak 2003. For an
overview of research in Central Dalmatia, see Glogovic 2006; and in the south-eastern Alps, see Bozic
1999. See also the detailed archaeological and ecological trans-historical study of the Ravni Kotari
area in Chapman et al. 1996.
6
For an overview of this concept, see Sasel Kos 2005, 223–33. The onomastic research is
reviewed in Wilkes 1992, 74–87; and Eichner 2004. For older palaeolinguistic research, see Russu
1969; Katicic 1976, 154–88.
7
Perisa 2002, 155–56.
8
Srejovic 2002; Milin 2003; Olujic 2004; 2007, 43–49; Matijasic 2009, 30–50. And see
Thurston 2009, 357–58 (the Eastern European approaches toward Iron Age societies); and Dzino
2010b, 38–39 (longue durée ethnogenesis).
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM
71

Fig. 1: Archaeological cultures and localities mentioned in the article.

72 D. DZINO

Danubian area has been seen as a consequence of the Celtic folk-migrations, whilst
the appearance of Mediterranean models has been regarded as the acceptance of
‘advanced’ civilisation; construction of the indigenous identities is more often
viewed as occurring between Greece and Rome than between the Mediterranean
and La Tène.9
The ‘Illyrian lands’ stretched between the Adriatic Sea, the south-eastern Alps
and the rivers Drava, Danube and Morava. This region consisted of ecologically
and culturally diverse sub-regions, which were shaped as a single geopolitical unit
during the Roman conquest, ending in the early 1st century AD. The scholarship
agrees that prior to the Roman conquest there was no Illyricum as a clearly defined
geographical term, and no sense of indigenous ‘Illyrian-ness’. The terms ‘Illyria’
(Illyris) and ‘Illyrians’ (Illyrioi) initially represented Greek perceptions of the indig-
enous populations in the south-eastern Adriatic and on the Macedonian borders,
and were later used by the Romans to label the wider region.10 Illyricum was con-
structed within the wider context of the Roman reshaping of ‘barbarian spaces’
in political and literary discourse of the Late Republic and Early Empire. For
this, earlier Hellenistic ethnographic perceptions of indigenous populations were
used as conceptual tools to construct new regions of the empire.11 Illyricum was
soon divided into the provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia, which developed their
own distinct provincial identities within a wider Roman imperial identity. The
term was thus maintained primarily as a Roman customs zone, resulting in an
inconsistent use of the term in literary sources from the 2nd and 3rd centuries
AD.12 In later antiquity, the term Illyricum was reclaimed by the Danubian legions
as a new kind of identity construct, and later used in different administrative, geo-
political and ideological contexts.13 In the more recent past, scholarly perceptions
of the ‘Illyrians’ were similar to perceptions of many other prehistoric groups used
by modern ideologies to justify present identity-constructions.14
When researching these communities in pre-Roman times, there are many
obstacles to overcome: not only is the indigenous population of the region, on
average, insufficiently studied and excavated, it is also largely absent from the

9
Kuntic-Makvic 2007; Pavic 2010. A different view is represented in Olujic 2007, 177–94;
Balen-Letunic 1995–96, who discuss the Iapodes between cultural influences of Mediterranaen and
La Tène; and Prusac 2007, who recognises the impact of La Tène on the groups east of the Neretva.
10
Sasel Kos 1986, 88–95; 2005, 223–44 with literature.
11
On the Roman construction of Illyricum, see Dzino 2010a. See also Stewart 1995; Clarke
2001; Krebs 2006; Riggsby 2006, 28–32, 47–71, etc.
12
Gracanin 2005.
13
Sasel Kos 2005, 244–47; cf. Dzino 2010b, 64–66.
14
In a wider context, see Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Díaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Galaty and
Watkinson 2004; etc. And for Illyricum, see Dzino 2008b, 44–46.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 73

Graeco-Roman literary sources. As a comprehensive approach is not possible here,

the rest of this article will, very selectively, focus on some strategies that these
communities used to position themselves in relation to foreign cultural and social
models after ca. 400 BC, and the consequences of these strategies for processes of
their identity-construction.15
Two basic models of social organisation exist in Late Iron Age Europe and the
Mediterranean. The first one is the well-documented Mediterranean polis model,
wherein development of the urban structures and institutions of a city-state repre-
sent a basis of political and social organisation.16 The most recent research concern-
ing Iron Age communities in temperate Europe postulates a world of very complex
social networks and political decentralisation, but devoid of significant urban struc-
tures and social hierarchy.17 These views are strengthened with the introduction of
the theoretical framework, called heterarchy, which indicates a socio-political sys-
tem in which different groups share and negotiate power in social structures, uni-
fied by links of adoptive kinship and clientship.18 This notion of a decentralised,
horizontal society connected by intersected webs of relationships between individu-
als and communities suggests that European Iron Age societies were, most of the
time, dominated by the anthropological category of ‘Big men’.19 The Late Iron Age
in continental Europe also sees the appearance of bands of horsemen (comitatus),
united by semi-sacred bonds of loyalty used by the ‘Big men’ to exert their will.
This appears as a reaction to outside factors such as an increasing demand for slaves
by Mediterranean markets.20
Of the communities of Early Iron Age Illyricum, we know, in general, very
little.21 From what is known, we can recognise patterns of heterarchical societies:
small, family-centred communities, concentrated around scarce fertile plains in the
15
Roughly sketched in Dzino 2008b, 48–49.
16
Hansen 1997; 2003. For a comparative perspective on the ancient world, see the papers in
Hansen 2000, 11–250.
17
Woolf 1993; Collis 1994; Hill 1995b; 2006; Bevan 1999; Sastre 2002; Moore 2007; Hasel-
grove and Moore 2007b; Giles 2007.
18
Heterarchy: Crumley 1995; 2007; and see the overview in Thurston 2009, 360–67. Adoptive
kinship and clientage: Parkes 2006; cf. Karl 2004.
19
The term indicates societies without a strongly stratified social ladder, dominated by individual
public displays of wealth and informal, personal standing within the community (Sahlins 1963).
20
The name comes from the term used by Tacitus in Germ. 13. See Creighton 2000, 11–26
(Britain); or Roymans 2004, 19–22 (Lower Rhine).
21
See Wilkes 1992, 40–66; and the now methodologically outdated Garasanin 1982. The most
substantial coverage of the Iron Age for this region (excluding Albania) is Benac 1987; cf. Lippert
2004. See more recently Balen-Letunic 2004; Potrebica 2008 (continental Croatia); Parzinger 1991;
Babic 2002; 2004 (Glasinac); and Korkuti 2004 (Albania). Important research has also been done on
the south-eastern Alps, which is tangential to the region under consideration (Mason 1996; Dular
and Tecco Hvala 2007).
74 D. DZINO

Dinaric karst22 or in the river valleys – the main lines of communication in the
wooded, mountainous regions north of the karst. Settlement research reveals a few
pile dwellings and open settlements but, overall, the Bronze Age and especially Iron
Age landscape is dominated by hillforts (pl. gradine, castellieri). These are so numer-
ous that we might even entertain the thought of addressing these indigenous socie-
ties as the ‘civilisation of the gradine’.23 The first gradine were built in the Early
Bronze Age, but more significant periods of their construction were the periods of
1000–800 BC and 600–400 BC. Earlier scholarship commonly views these hill-
forts as defensive structures, with only a few seen as proto-urban or sacral struc-
tures. More recent theoretical developments, however, regarding Iron Age hillforts
in Britain and oppida in continental Europe, interpret prehistoric, enclosed spaces
more frequently as communal, sacral and industrial centres.24 The one exception
from these small, non-hierarchical societies forms the Glasinac-Mati archaeological
complex, especially its northern part. This shows both intense early contacts with
the Archaic Greek world and more complex networks of exchange and competition
between regional elites distinguished by rich princely tombs appearing after
ca. 700 BC until their disappearance in ca. 400/350 BC.25
The first impetus for change in indigenous social structures should be traced to
increased contacts with the Mediterranean ‘global’ world. It occurs first through
contacts with Greece in the Archaic period, but its rate accelerates with the spread
of colonies in the south-eastern Adriatic (Epidamnos/Dyrrachium – modern
Durrës, Apollonia) from the 7th century BC, and later on the Central Adriatic
islands of Vis (Issa), Korcula (Korkyra Melaina) and Hvar (Pharos), after 400 BC.
These settlements acted as cultural interfaces in which colonial encounters occurred
between the Greek-speaking settlers and indigenous communities, significantly
impacting and transforming both parties. Contacts included not only the
importation of Greek material goods, but also the use of symbols and artefacts of

22
Landscapes of porous limestone with scarce vegetation and water supplies, characteristic for the
hinterland of the eastern Adriatic coast.
23
I borrow this well-chosen term from Pavic 2009: ‘die illyrische Gradina-Zivilisation’.
24
For gradine research, see Covic 1965; Benac 1975; Suic 1976, 47–81; Govedarica 1982. And
see the more recent overviews in Bursic Matijasic 2008, 124–49; Pavic 2009. Useful regional research
is Benac 1985 (the regions of Tomislavgrad, Livno and Glamoc); Bekic 1996 (Rovinj – Istria); Bursic
Matijasic 2008 (Istria); Cace 1982; Chapman et al. 1996, 110–57 (Ravni Kotari – the Liburian cul-
ture); and Novakovic 2005 (Slovenian karst). For recent comparative approaches in continental
Europe and Britain, see Woolf 1993; Hill 1995; Hamilton and Manley 2001; Metzler et al. 2006;
Wells 2006 (continental oppida); Bryant 2007; Brown 2009, 183–237 (Britain).
25
Wilkes 1992, 41–50; Babic 2002; 2004; Palavestra and Babic 2003; and the methodologically
outdated but informative Vasic 2003; 2005. For a wider regional context of strong interaction and
interrelations between the southern periphery of Illyria ancient Macedonians, Thracians and the
Greek colonies, see also Theodossiev 1998; 2000.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 75

Mediterranean origins within the indigenous contexts, and sometimes even resist-
ance to them.26
A significant aspect of this interaction occurred in the sacral and mythological
domains, used as a medium of cultural mediation between indigenous populations
from the coast and Mediterranean networks.27 The spread of the cult of Diomedes
is today well attested throughout the eastern Adriatic in sacral sites discovered on
the Vela Palagruza islands, and on Cape Ploca near Sibenik (Pliny’s promunturium
Diomedis).28 The discovery of an indigenous sanctuary in the Nakovana cave on the
Peljesac Peninsula should be viewed within this context. It demonstrates the use of
Greek pottery and records Greek-named individuals who participated in rituals
which focused on a large phallic stalagmite, from ca. the 4th to ca. the 1st century
BC.29 This interaction worked both ways, as the Greeks used the symbolism of
the snake in the sacral life of these indigenous communities to create the myth of
Cadmus, and probably also to label them.30
So-called ‘Graeco-Illyrian’ helmets (Figs. 2–3) – stylistic developments of the
more famous Corinthian hoplite helmets – are a good example of appropriation of
Greek goods within indigenous cultural contexts. They are found throughout
south-eastern Europe, and even across the Danube. Nevertheless, the most signifi-
cant quantity of later types of these helmets (III A, III A1a and III A1b) is found
dispersed throughout different communities in future Illyricum, and representa-
tions of these helmets in scenes decorating belt buckles and belt mounts indicate
their importance in indigenous societies as distinctive identity symbols of the elite.
It has been plausibly suggested that these helmets were significant status symbols,
indicating one’s position within the community.31 They are occasionally found in

26
Kirigin 1990; Galaty 2002, 118–21; Katic 2002; Cambi 2003. For the Greek colonisation of
the eastern Adriatic, cf. Zaninovic 2004; Cabanes 2002; 2008.
27
See comparable examples of such cultural mediation elsewhere in, for example, Malkin 2004;
Riva 2010.
28
On the cult of Diomedes, see Kirigin and Cace 1998; Sasel Kos 2005, 115–16; Castiglioni
2008; Marohnic 2010. For the promunturium Diomedis, see Pliny NH 3. 143; Bilic-Dujmusic 2004;
Cace and Seselj 2005; Seselj 2010. For Vela Palagruza (the islands of Diomedes), see Kirigin and
Cace 1998; Kirigin et al. 2009.
29
Forenbaher 2000; Forenbaher and Kaiser 2006. There is also a recent discovery of a cave sanc-
tuary with similar finds in the Vilina cave in Rijeka Dubrovacka near Dubrovnik (Perkic 2010). The
cave of SS Philip and Jacob (Marina, near Trogir) was probably a similar sanctuary, which continued
with its sacral significance into Early Christianity and later in post-Roman and Mediaeval times
(Pitesa 2004; 2008).
30
Sasel Kos 1993; 2004; 2005, 124–32; Castiglioni 2006. See also Rossignoli 2004, 103–24.
31
Comprehensively argued in Blecic 2007a; cf. Babic 2001. On belt buckles, see also A. Jovanovic
1989; Kull 1997, 299-333. The number of these helmets is larger than previously thought, and it is
suggested that they were also used in sacral contexts as votive gifts (Blecic Kavur and Pravidur forth-
coming).
76 D. DZINO

Fig. 2: Warrior wearing Graeco-Illyrian helmet. Reconstruction based on different

grave finds of different periods from south-western Bosnia and western
Herzegovina, ascribed to the Central Dalmatian group (after Covic 1976, 263).

mortuary contexts, and their use differs significantly in different regions. The most
interesting is certainly the example from the Kamenjaca cemetery in the valley of
the River Bosna, where burials continued from the 4th century BC to Roman
times (Fig. 3). The excavators uncovered the remains of two helmets, purposely cut
into pieces and used in cremation burials from ca. the 4th century BC.32

32
Paskvalin 2008, 114, 116, 126–27, T. 17.1–4. There were probably even more of these cut
helmets in Kamenjaca, as suggested in Blecic Kavur and Pravidur forthcoming.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 77

Significant quantities of amphorae and fine Hellenistic pottery in Central

Dalmatia reveal increased trade and a rising fashion for wine consumption in the
coastal indigenous communities after ca. 400 BC. The foundation of Greek settle-
ments on the Adriatic islands started wine production there, increasing the amount
of trade with the coast, and also long-distance exchange with southern Italy and
Sicily. The descendants of the Greek colonists, together with Italic entrepreneurs,
expanded their wine-producing venues in the Neretva valley, near the settlement of
Narona.33 New points of contact are continually being discovered in this region,
including the Desilo-Hutovo Blato harbour, preserving an underwater find of 30
merchant ships of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.34 Within the hinterland of Central
Dalmatia, however, where ancient sources locate an indigenous Delmatae, there is
a curious lack of material evidence for wine consumption,35 suggesting that these
particular communities may have resisted the use of wine. These contrasting drink-
ing habits could have been exploited – or created – on a political and identity level
through historically attested conflicts of the Delmataean alliance with the Issaeans
(later Romans) and their indigenous allies.36
The resistance and acceptance of certain cultural features do not necessarily
exclude each other. This resistance to wine-drinking does not necessarily indicate
opposition and resistance to Mediterranean influences in the Central Dalmatian
hinterland, as Mediterranean imports are frequently found in this region. The finds
in Gorica, near Ljubuski, show continuing deposition of items (mainly weapons)
from ca. 600 BC until Roman times; these were discovered in the remains of a
building, apparently influenced by Greek and Etruscan temple-building traditions.
C. Truhelka originally discovered traces of cremation in the building, including
charred human bones and traces of fire on the items dated before ca. 500 BC,
assuming that this was depository for cremation burials. B. Covic rejected this
opinion, following the earlier suggestion of P. Reincke, and assumed that this is
sanctuary, which was damaged by fire around 500 BC, together with sacrificial
items.37 It is probable that this sanctuary in Gorica, as well as other known sacral
spaces – such as the Mandina gradina hillfort near Tomislavgrad – played an

33
For an overview of the Hellenistic period gnathia pottery finds on the eastern Adriatic coast
and its hinterland, see Green 2001, 70–72; and for wine production and exports from the central
Dalmatian islands and the valley of the Neretva, see Kirigin et al. 2005; Lindhagen 2009.
34
Vasilj and Foric 2009.
35
Kirigin et al. 2005, 8, 11.
36
Dzino 2006. On significance of alcohol as cultural, political and religious symbol, see the
research of Dietler (for example Dietler 2006).
37
Truhelka 1902, 3–42; Reincke 1933; Covic 1976, 252–54; 1987a, 473–74; Glogovic 2006, 9.
Some 600 m from the sanctuary a deposit was discovered of Hellenistic silver earrings placed together
with the early La Tène fibulae (Truhelka 1902, 42–47).
78 D. DZINO

important part in establishing and maintaining regional and supra-regional identi-

ties which formed around plains in the inhospitable, karst-dominated landscapes of
Dalmatian Zagora and western Herzegovina. 38
Mediterranean influences are significant in the development of urban structures
in the south-eastern Adriatic and the Liburnian culture after ca. 400 BC. The rise
of urbanisation on the Adriatic coast affected the construction of indigenous iden-
tities with the formation of new urban elites and the wider spread of a monetary
economy and Hellenistic social models. The hillforts became the nuclei of more
significant urban settlements such as Lissos and Buthrotum; urban influences can
be traced as far as the eastern bank of the Neretva (Osanici, centre of the Daorsi)
(Fig. 4).39 The hillforts in the Liburnian culture, such as Radovin, Asseria (Podgraÿe
near Benkovac), Nadin or Aenona (Nin), also reveal more compact settlement pat-
terns in this period, with recognisable circular layouts of the streets.40 Alongside
these changes were alterations to burial customs in both sub-regions, with influ-
ences of Mediterranean burial rites, the visible presence of artefacts of Greek ori-
gins in elite funerary settings, and clearer social stratification such as Gostilj cem-
etery near the Lake of Scodra, from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC (Fig. 6).41
M.L. Galaty sees Greek colonisation in the south-eastern Adriatic as a ‘rupture in
intra-generational trajectories’, assessing the impact of colonial contact in south-east-
ern Illyricum as increased competition for access to trade. Communities were either
allied with, or opposed to, the colonists, and Mediterranean goods were used to
establish indigenous hierarchy and rank.42 This increased competition marks, in
anthropological terms, a transition from a society of ‘Big men’ who manipulated
personal wealth in order to establish and strengthen their position in the society to
hierarchic chiefdoms. Such a view is supported by written evidence. The Illyrian
kingdom (the alliance of Mati communities) was initially dominated by the strongest
group and its leader, called ‘king’ in the Greek sources. In the late 3rd and early 2nd
centuries BC this polity was disrupted by the friction arising between attempts of the

38
Benac 1985, 16–20, 198, 205; Covic 1987a, 474. The deposition of weapons with pieces of
pottery from Matijevici near Siroki Brijeg might also have been sacrificial (see Skegro 1992, who does
not place it in a sacral context). For a comparative perspective, see Roymans (2004, 12–14) on the
significance of pre-Roman sanctuaries for developing regional identities in the Lower Rhineland.
39
Ceka 1985b; Cabanes 1988, 207–33; cf. Maric 1979; 1995 (Osanici). See also Wilkes 1992,
129–36, rightly questioning the idea that these hillforts were genuinely self-evolving into urban struc-
tures.
40
Batovic 1987, 351–55. For Nadin, see Wilkes 1992, 187–88; Chapman et al. 1996, 116–25.
41
For the south-eastern Adriatic, see Ceka 1972; 1975; 1985a; Koçi 1987; Cabanes 1988, 207–
33; Fedak 1990, 109–13; Wilkes 1992, 168–70. For Gostilj, see Basler 1972. For the Liburni, see
Batovic 1974; Cace 1985, 614–19.
42
Galaty 2002, 116–17, 119–21.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 79

Fig. 3: Pieces of Graeco-Illyrian helmet from Kamenjaca cremations

(after Paskvalin 2008, 176).

Fig. 4: Entrance to the Acropolis in Osanici (author’s photograph).

80 D. DZINO

‘kings’ to centralise it, and the resistance to centralisation by the new urban elites
(dynastai).43 Major conflict points in the 2nd century BC are connected with the
control of trade routes, such as the conflict between the Delmatae and the Roman
allies, the Daorsi and Issa, in the valley of the Neretva and the attempts of the Del-
matae to take control of the Issaean emporion of Salona in the Bay of Kasteli.44
Equally important to the colonial encounter with the Mediterranean were the
influences of La Tène cultural templates on indigenous societies. The appearance
of La Tène material culture is usually ascribed to folk movements of ethnic Celts
in the 4th century BC, relying on scarce and often conflicting written sources. To
correspond with wider debates which shift scholarly focus towards de-ethnicising
La Tène culture,45 the appearance of La Tène in southern Pannonia and the con-
fluence of the Sava and the Danube might now be seen as the targeted movements
of small groups and profound change in the ways that the existing population
expressed their social and cultural identities.46 The finds in Pecine, for example,
show that the local population was not simply replaced by the migrating ‘Celts’,
but that the migrants and indigenous communities lived together.47 Therefore, the
disappearance of some earlier local material culture groups in this period, including
some Central Danubian cultures (Dalj, Bosut, Srijem), does not signify the physi-
cal disappearance of these communities, but rather a change in identity-construc-
tion, influenced by the arrivals from central Europe.48 In similar way, the commu-
nities between the rivers Sava and Drava (known later as the Pannonii) were
accommodating and localising elements of the La Tène into their local traditions.49
There were different attitudes towards the accommodation of La Tène, so it is not
surprising to detect a strong survival of indigenous traditions in the Donja Dolina-
Sanski Most cultural group, especially in Sanski Most.50
Earlier scholarship regarded La Tène influences primarily as superficial in the
Dinaric belt south of the Sava, as related material is discovered always in contexts
clearly connected with the existing indigenous traditions. It appears occasionally after

43
Polybius 5. 4. 2; Cabanes 1988, 87–334; Sasel Kos 2005, 249–90; Dzino 2010a, 44–60.
44
Sasel Kos 2005, 296–313; Dzino 2010a, 62–69.
45
Raging especially fiercely in the 1990s: Megaw and Megaw 1996; Collis 1997; James 1999.
See also Megaw 2005.
46
Dzino 2007; Majnaric-Pandzic 2009. For evidence of direct contacts between the La Tène and
the Greek koine in the south Morava valley and the consequence of the military influence of the
Scordisci, see also Megaw 2004; and especially Popovic 2005; 2006.
47
B. Jovanovic 1984; 1992.
48
Vasic 1987.
49
Dizdar and Potrebica 2002; 2005; Dizdar 2003.
50
Maric 1964; Covic 1987b..
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 81

370 BC, and increases quantitatively after ca. 260 BC.51 However, it seems that La
Tène influences were very influential on the construction of local identities through
the selective acceptance and reworking of foreign objects and symbols. The interior
of the Dalmatian hinterland shows some examples of how La Tène culture was
accommodated within existing local forms and recombined with the influences from
the Mediterranean world, directly affecting the ways in which indigenous identities
were constructed. There are three predominant impacts visible in the archaeological
record: the use of La Tène weapons, fibulae and the increase of cremation burials.
The use of La Tène weapons in the Central Dalmatian and Iapodean culture
indicates active connections and influences of the La Tène world deep into the
Dinaric belt.52 They may also indicate affiliations with warrior ideologies coming
from the west, but might also represent nothing more than the use of more effi-
cient tools for war. The prominence and visibility of fibulae, however, places them
in a different position from the weapons. Significant numbers of La Tène and La
Tène-like fibulae are discovered south of the Sava, appearing as far south-east as
Gostilj or Momisici, near Podgorica.53 While we cannot view the fibulae as ‘detec-
tors’ of ethnicity, their visibility makes them likely to be considered as an expres-
sion of emblematic styles – the identity markers – incorporated in local cultural
settings as signifiers of identity, claimed by both social groups and individuals.54
While inhumation was the dominant practice, cremation continued throughout
the earlier period south of the Sava in the Iapodean and Donja Dolina-Sanski Most
culture, probably as a remnant tradition from the Urnfield period. Thus, it cannot be
claimed that La Tène culture introduced cremation; only that cremations increased
significantly after ca. 400 BC.55 Later Iron Age cemeteries are characterised by more
apparent bi-rituality in the Iapodean culture, while the evidence from Kamenjaca
shows the appearance of cremation in the Central Bosnian culture as well.56 The
appearance of weapons, which were absent in burials of the Iapodean culture from
the earlier period, is linked with these late cremations and La Tène influences.
51
Maric 1963; Zaninovic 2001; Kruta 2001, 47–48.
52
Central Dalmatian culture: Covic 1987, 485; Skegro 1992. For the Iapodean culture, see
Olujic 2007, 182–84.
53
Popovic 1996, especially figs. 11, 14; cf. Majnaric-Pandzic 1996. Gostilj: Basler 1972;
Momisici: Velimirovic-Zizic 1964–65.
54
On emblematic styles, see Wiessner 1983; 1989.
55
For Donja Dolina-Sanski Most burials before the mid-4th century BC, see Covic 1987b, 270–
73 (the number of cremations does not exceed 30%); and recently, on partial burials in Donja
Dolina, Gavranovic 2007. For the Iapodean culture, see Drechler-Bizic 1987, 426–29; Olujic 2002;
2007, 160–75.
56
No cremations are known in this culture before the 4th century, and known burials from this
period are generally scarce (Covic 1987a, 511–12; Peric 2002, 187–93; Paskvalin 2008). A small
number of discovered graves might indicate the existence of archaeologically invisible burial customs.
82 D. DZINO

However, different inhumation and cremation rituals are detected in this group,
while the ratio of cremation and inhumation differs in different sub-regions, showing
that a degree of regional heterogeneity was maintained in this period.57 In the Kamen-
jaca necropolis, simple in-ground cremation dominates the practice of cremation in
stone urns, with only one single female inhumation discovered.58 Cremation never
became widespread in the communities closer to the coast before the Roman con-
quest. Rather, inhumation in tumuli and common burial grounds was the norm.
All types of identity (social, ethnic, regional) are fluid social constructs and it is
very difficult to comprehend them from the material or written records alone.59 The
term ‘Illyrians’ in a wider sense reflects only the perception of outside observers
from the past, as well as scholarly codification and taxonomy based on the assump-
tions of linguistic unity which cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt. We can-
not be absolutely certain that ethnic names known from written sources, such as the
‘Delmatae’ or ‘Iapodes’, always reflect their genuine sense of shared identity, or to
what degree that shared identity existed, or continued to exist, into Roman times.60
Nevertheless, these local communities formed complex horizontal and vertical
social networks which enabled the formation and maintenance of identity discourses.
It was pointed out earlier that there were existing heterarchic social systems – decen-
tralised societies bound by personal/family links and negotiated by different segments
of society.61 These are best seen through settlement patterns, which reveal a heteroge-
neous world of small communities – the world dominated by the clans and the ‘Big
men’ within. The settlement clusters in the karst regions which formed on the edge of
plains or in river valleys of the mountainous hinterland (Bosna, Vrbas, Una), indicate
the importance played by the role of landscape and changing ecological factors in the
formation of heterogeneous regional identities among the indigenous populations.62

57
Drechler-Bizic 1987, 428.
58
Paskvalin 2002; 2008.
59
The literature on ancient identities is enormous and by no means homogenous: Jones 1997;
Hall 1997; Brather 2004; etc.
60
For discontinuity of identities after the Roman conquest, see Dzino 2009a (Daesitiates); 2009b
(Iapodes); and, in the general context of continental Europe, Woolf 2002.
61
See Chapman and Shiel 1991, 73–74, who described Liburnian Iron Age society as based on
cognatic (kinship) groups who commonly owned land, and imposed certain restrictions on group
membership. The opening of commercial contacts with the Greek world after ca. 400 BC caused the
slow disintegration of common ownership and differentiation of local elites.
62
Wilkes 1992, 21. See his useful overview of the ‘Illyrian landscapes’: Wilkes 1992, 13–27.
Chapman et al. (1996, 255–56, 262–63) show, with the example of the Ravni Kotari, that increased
wetness in the Iron Age made soil in lowland fields difficult for cultivation and dangerous for living
because of the frequent flooding. For this reason, Iron Age populations preferred to live on slopes and
ridges around the fields.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 83

It would be wrong to assume that heterogeneity of the indigenous communities

was simply a passive reflection of the fragmented landscape or impassability of the
terrain. Rather, it seems that those communities actively used fragmented land-
scapes to construct a regional sense of belonging. The construction of the hillforts
varies throughout different regions, showing regional building traditions, but also
differences in settlement nucleation between the regions.63 The sophisticated visual
communication between the hillforts in the Central Dalmatian culture, although
usually understood in terms of defence,64 can be seen in a different perspective as
advertising space claimed by individual clans, or an outward display of their sig-
nificance, status and prestige in the landscape.65 As pointed out by J. Chapman and
his collaborators when assessing hillforts of the Liburnian culture: ‘The enclosed
sites thereby increased the strength of their inhabitants’ relations with the ancestors
over those of the inhabitants of unenclosed sites.’66 Most frequently, hillforts in the
Central Dalmatian culture are positioned on hill slopes without stone walls on
sides opening towards the fields, while the open settlements are usually located on
lower ground, between the hillfort and the field.67 The hillforts often incorporate,
or are flanked by, mounds of stones which include human or charred animal bones,
pottery and traces of hearths.68 The fragmented nature of the ‘Illyrian landscapes’
not only brought communities together, but also enhanced competition between
smaller communities. This ambiguity meant that regional identities were con-
structed on a background of constant friction: the coming together of extended
family groups sharing the same landscape and internal differences, enhanced by the
need for smaller groups to compete for scarce space and fertile land.
The formation and maintenance of regional identities was probably the most
important part of indigenous identity-building discourses in the later Iron Ages.

63
See Chapman et al. 1996, 154–57, showing a more substantial degree of settlement nucleation
for the Liburnian culture, as compared with Glasinac or the Central Dalmatian culture.
64
Benac 1985, 201–02; Covic 1987, 459–67; Wilkes 1992, 190–92 with bibliography. See also
similarities in the Iapodean culture: Olujic 2007, 144–59. The possibility of a multi-functional
nature of gradine (sacred, communal, industrial) is briefly indicated in Suic 1976, 67, 80; and Benac
1985, 198. See also Chapman et al. 1996, 283–87, who placed the gradine from the Ravni Kotari in
a much more complex methodological framework.
65
See Hill 1995b; Brown 2009, 193–96.
66
Chapman et al. 1996, 287.
67
Benac assumes that wooden palisades were placed there (for example Benac 1985, 121–22).
Even if we accept that wooden palisades were placed at some point, and evidence provided for this is
slim, it does not necessarily mean that the palisades were there originally.
68
Benac 1985, 198–205; Wilkes 1992, 192. The connection between hillforts and burial mounds
is also characteristic of the Iapodean culture (Drechler-Bizic 1987, 424–25; Olujic 2007, 148, 163–
65), while an estimated 20% of the total number of the Central Bosnian hillforts is associated with
these mounds (Covic 1987a, 507).
84 D. DZINO

The differences in the cultural habitus of the different regions in the Iapodean cul-
ture are well documented, not only through material culture but also through dif-
ferences in burial customs.69 It has been suggested that the Romans might even
have used mutual rivalry between regional elites when they established the admin-
istrative peregrine civitas Iapodum in the 1st century AD.70 The Central Bosnian
culture shows distinctive regional patterns of hillfort construction, and different
clusters of hillforts, concentrated around river valleys.71 The Central Dalmatian
culture shows the existence of different regional sacral points that might have
played a role as communal and regional symbols, as observed earlier.72
Apart from overwhelming evidence showing the establishment of regional iden-
tities, it is important to point out the evidence for the existence of inter-regional
social networks. Of particular importance was the trade in iron ore and iron objects,
especially weapons.73 Strong cultural links imply the existence of iron exchanges
(whether as finished objects or as ingots) between the iron-producing Donja
Dolina-Sanski Most and the iron-deficient Central Dalmatian culture in Dalma-
tian Zagora and western Herzegovina. These exchange networks probably played
an important role in the early formation of inter-regional links between the clans
in the Dalmatian hinterland.74
The influences of social models coming from the eastern Mediterranean and the
western La Tène increased after ca. 400 BC. If we use analogies with other indige-
nous communities on the frontiers of the Mediterranean world, such as continental
Europe, Britain or North Africa,75 it is possible to assume that the majority of his-
torically known communities in what would become Illyricum constructed their
identities only through increased contacts with the Mediterranean world, which
relates in particular to Roman expansion. This was a very heterogeneous process and
a common element might be recognised: local elites started to adopt Hellenistic and,
later, Roman cultural templates in order to legitimise and strengthen domination

69
On the Iapodean culture, see Balen-Letunic 1995–96, 27–28; 1999–2000, 31–32; Olujic
2007, 180–85. For burial customs, see Drechler-Bizic 1987, 426–29; Olujic 2007, 160–75.
70
Dzino 2009b.
71
Mesihovic (2007, 961–76) distinguishes four distinct regional concentrations of hillforts.
72
See n. 37 above.
73
See Giles 2007 for the importance of iron in the establishment of inter-regional networks in
heterachical societies of Iron Age Britain.
74
Covic 1980; 1987a, 480. For the role of Donja Dolina in inter-regional trade, see also Covic
1987b, 273–75.
75
Wells 1999, 33, 57. Cf. Nash 1978 (Gaul); Slofstra 2002; Roymans 2004 (the Batavians);
Oltean 2007, 41–53 (Dacia); Papworth 2008 (the Durotriges in Britain); Whittaker 2009 (North
Africa); etc.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 85

within their communities.76 They were competing fiercely through either alliance or
conflict and resistance to Roman expansion. Thus, they established more complex
political alliances, which convinced our sources to see them as ‘ethnic’ identities.77
The influence of La Tène in the region is more difficult to detect from the evi-
dence. However, general matters such as strong collective identities on a local level,
the values of warrior-ship and the presence of ideological affiliation of social groups
through use of La Tène fibulae are more obvious matters and were observed earlier.
It would be interesting to discuss whether the bands of horsemen (comitatus),
which appeared in Late Iron Age continental Europe and Britain, existed in pre-
Roman Illyricum, or some of its parts, as well. The evidence is patchy but we can
postulate that they existed, at least in some communities. Horsemen and horses are
depicted on stone cremation chests in the peripheral region of the Iapodean culture
from the Una valley (Fig. 5), and, after the 5th century BC, there is a general
importance ascribed to horses and horsemen in the material culture of this group
(fibulae, pectorals, pendants). 78 The belt plates from Selcë e Poshtme and Prozor
near Otocac (Prozor-type buckles) from the 3rd century BC bestow dominant
positions upon the horsemen wearing the Graeco-Illyrian helmets.79 Certainly by
that time this type of helmets was not used in fighting, but it remained important
symbol of power as a representation on the coins minted by King Genthius
(ca. 181–168 BC) shows.80 Horsemen are also prominent in La Tène-influenced
motifs such as those on a silver plate from grave 119, and also on the rectangular
part of a belt set from grave 126, depicting horsemen attacking a warrior wearing
a Graeco-Illyrian helmet, both from Gostilj cemetery (Fig. 6).81 There is also
epigraphic evidence: the epitaph of one Alkenos from Corcyra, dated to 250–200
BC, which says that he was killed by ‘Illyrians who fight on horses’ (ˆIllurio⁄sin ûf’

76
For example, negotiation between the Greek polis model and the federalised ethne in south-
eastern Illyricum (Cabanes 1999).
77
Dzino 2010, 37–38; cf. Hammond 2000. See also Collis 2007 on the development of political
identities in Late Iron Age Gaul, Britain and Ireland.
78
Raunig 2004, 150–51, T. XVII–XXI, XXIX; cf. Olujic 2007, 182–83 (importance of horses).
Stone cremation chests are dated between the 6th century BC and the 1st century AD (Vasic 1967;
Wilkes 1992, 198–200; Raunig 2004, 230–33). The earlier dating is based on stylistic similarities
with Archaic Greek and Etruscan art. Balen-Letunic (2007, 386, 390) points out the stylistic simi-
larities between the stone-chest figures and the warrior-shaped pendant on spectacle-shaped fibulae
dated to the late 5th or the first half of the 4th century BC.
79
Raunig 2004, 143–44. See also Balen-Letunic 1995–96; Majnaric-Pandzic 1998, 344–46;
Blecic 2007a, 88–91.
80
Basler 1972, T. VIII 34.8; XIII 59.9.
81
Grave 119: Basler 1972, T. VII; cf. Kruta 2001, 49. Grave 126: Basler 1972, T. XXV: 126.3;
cf. A. Jovanovic 1989, 120–31; Kossack 1991, 151–55; Sasel Kos 1993, 123.
86 D. DZINO

Fig. 5: Procession of mounted warriors on urn from Ribic, Iapodean

group (after Covic 1976, 159).

Fig. 6: The belt mounts from the graves 119 (above) and 138 (below),
the necropolis at Velje Ledine, Gostilj (after Basler 1972).

îppomáxoisi).82 In Kamenjaca cemetery, three horse skeletons were discovered, but

excavators were not able to determine whether they belong to the pre-Roman or
Roman period.83 Finally, a strong detachment of cavalry – 9000 horsemen – is
listed by Velleius Paterculus in his depiction of the indigenous forces during the
bellum Batonianum, AD 6–9.84

82
IG 92 1 4, 929; SEG 51. 665; Rendic-Miocevic 1991, 278–80.
83
Paskvalin 2008, 107, 114, plan 3.
84
Velleius Paterculus 2. 110. 3. The total number of 200,000 infantry is exaggerated and should
be halved (Dzino 2010a, 146–47), but cavalry numbers sound more reasonable.
 CONTESTING IDENTITIES OF PRE-ROMAN ILLYRICUM 87

The possibility that the ‘Big men’ in some communities would gather armed
groups of horsemen or elite warriors to conduct raids for the acquisition of prestige
goods is increased by evidence for significant export of slaves, hides and cattle from
this region, via Aquileia, which were exchanged for wine, olive oil and seafood.85 In
the same context, it is also possible to see a rising demand for slaves to work on
wine-producing estates in the lower Neretva.86 It seems plausible to suggest that
native elites from some regions were acting as intermediaries in the slave trade,
conducting slave raids on other communities in order to acquire goods such as
wine, and enhancing their prestige within their own communities.87 Taking into
account the low level of Roman military activities in the region before the mid-1st
century BC, we can postulate that some indigenous groups acted as slave suppliers
to the Mediterranean and local markets. This slave trade might also have resulted
in the more complex organisation of other regional and inter-regional communities
desiring protection from such raids.
Existing models used to approach these communities, based on palaeolinguis-
tics, culture-history archaeology and written evidence, are insufficient today. The
greatest objection is that they ultimately present timeless identities which mirror
archaeological and palaeolinguistic classification and attempt to accommodate the
evidence of written sources and ethnicise the differences between diverse groups
and regions. With our patchy evidence, we can date with reasonable certainty the
beginnings of significant social changes in this region to ca. 400 BC. The ‘Illyrian
lands’ in the Late Iron Age become an active identity-making zone; a liminal space
where the global influences of La Tène and the Mediterranean cultural and social
templates were ‘glocalised’88 within local indigenous cultural traditions. Engage-
ment with these outside influences, whether by exchange or conflict, brought about
change in the social structure. This change influenced the restructuring of local
identities, the development of more complex political institutions and the increase
in differences between individual communities. Such a view contradicts prevailing
notions of gradual social development, or gradual ethnicisation of indigenous

85
Strabo (5. 1. 8) refers to the trade route through the Ocra pass via Nauportus and the valley of
the Sava (cf. 4. 6. 10; 7. 5. 2) (see Sasel 1977; Sasel Kos 2002).
86
Lindhagen (2009, 105) suggests that slaves were brought here from Delos where they were
exchanged for central Dalmatian wine. They would be much cheaper to collect from the Adriatic
hinterland, and the very early imperial inscription in Narona mentioning libertine of indigenous
origins, P. Annaeus Epicadus, shows that some of the slaves were local, CIL 3. 1784 (see Wilkes
1969, 247; Lindhagen 2009, 98–99).
87
Comparable with the use of wine and feasts in La Tène societies (see, for example, Dietler
1990; 1999; Arnold 1999).
88
For the accommodation of new objects and practices into local societies, see Hingley 2005,
111; and overview in Hodos 2010.
88 D. DZINO

groups throughout the Iron Ages. This indicates that the groups from this region,
which we know from ancient literary sources, in most cases developed as recent
political formations, a local reaction to Mediterranean and La Tène influences, as
well as to Roman imperialism.

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Department of Ancient History

Macquarie University
NSW 2109
Australia
danijel.dzino@mq.edu.au