Archaeology of Kosovo

Archaeology of Kosovo as a field of study and research was started in the second half of the 20th century. Kosovo's field of archaeology has developed in tandem with the historical study, studies of ancient authors' sources, classic philological studies, theological data research, topographic studies and ground survey, analysis of toponyms, deciphering of epigraphic and historiographic data. First data about antique monuments in Kosovo, were documented from the end of the 19th until the beginning of the Second World War, a time period when Kosovo was visited by researchers, guides, and archaeologists such as: Evans, Boue, Hahn, Kanitz, Tomaschek, Domaschevski, Arpad, Vulic, Jirecek, Patsch, Domenico Mustilli,^[1][2][3][4] etc.

In the 1950s, researchers in Kosovo began to focus on studying prehistoric and ancient times. Development of scientific archaeological research methods starts with the founding of the Museum of Kosovo in 1949, and later these studies were helped with the establishment of other relevant local and regional institutions. In 2003, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of Kosovo established the Archaeological Institute of Kosovo, and since then, many archaeological sites have been excavated and recorded. Since then geophysical, geomagnetic archaeometallurgical and archaeobotanic studies were performed at some archaeological sites in close cooperation with partners from Germany such as the German Archaeological Institute, and other relevant international institutions with the same inter-disciplinary access. The municipality of Ferizaj specifically has been rich in archaeological findings.^[5][6][7]