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DAI has grown from a focus on Italy to encompass a German interest in the archaeology of Greece and the Middle East. As such, it has become a major source of finance and administration for German archaeological activity and is a highly respected publisher of field and laboratory research pursued under its auspices.
See also
German Contributions to the Archaeology of the Classical World
(1821–1889)
The Slovenian archaeologist, natural scientist, and politician Dragotin Dezman (also known as Carl Deschmann) introduced and developed scientific and professional archaeology in slovenia. He first studied medicine, law, and natural sciences at Vienna University; was curator of the Provincial Museum of Carniola (Landes Museum fur Krain) in Ljubljana from 1852 to 1889; and in 1864 was made president of the Museum Society of Carniola and also a member of the Anthropological Society of Vienna.
As a natural scientist, Dezman devoted the first decades of his research and museum work almost entirely to his specialities: zoology, botany, and geology. However, in 1875 he discovered pile dwellings at the site of ljubljansko barje in Slovenia, and from then on he focused most of his work on prehistoric archaeology. From 1875 to 1877 he conducted several excavations of pile dwellings and uncovered some interesting artifacts such as wooden architectural remains, clay figurines, richly ornamented pottery, and the earliest metal finds in Slovenia. He published only short reports and notices of this work.
In the 1880s, he extended his prehistoric research to include the entire province of Carniola, the core province among Slovenian lands in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He published the first syntheses on the prehistory of this province, “Prahistorische ansiedlungen und Begrabnisstatten” and “Zur Vorgeschichte Krains” in 1880 and 1891, respectively.
Dezman considered prehistoric archaeology to be a natural science founded on empiricist and evolutionist anthropological bases. He tried to follow the development of archaeology in Europe and to apply the best standards of those positivist disciplines to his work. For example, he was able to distinguish the la tène finds in Carniola only a year after the Iron Age was divided into the Hallstatt and La Tène periods. He maintained contacts with many of the most important institutions and scholars in central Europe and even beyond. He integrated the Provincial Museum into the international museum network, and after his important discoveries at Ljubljansko Barje, he organized the First Austrian Congress of Anthropology and Prehistory in Ljubljana in 1879. As an important personality in political and cultural life (mayor of Ljubljana 1871–1873, member of Parliament in Vienna 1873–1879), he succeeded in developing the new Museum Palace, which was officially opened in 1888. On that occasion he published a modern guidebook to the museum’s collections, of which the prehistory collection was the most prominent.
References
Dezman, D. 1880. “Prahistorische ansiedlungen und Begrabnisstatten.” In Krain I. Bericht, Denkschriften der k.k. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Matematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Classe 42, 1–54. Vienna.
———. 1888. Fuhrer durch das Krainische Landes-Museum Rudolfinum in Laibach. Ljubljana.
———. 1891. “Zur Vorgeschichte Krains.” In Die osterreichisch-ungarisch Monarchie in Wort und Bild, Karnten und Krain, 305–324. Vienna.
Gabrovec, S. 1971. “Stopetdeset let arheologije v Narodnem muzeju.” Argo 10, no. 1.
Lozar, R. 1941. “Razvoj in problemi slovenske arheoloske vede.” Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino 17.
(1904–1971)
Porphyrios Dikaios studied archaeology in greece, Britain, and france. He was the curator of the Cyprus Museum from 1931 to 1960, acting director of the Department of Antiquities during World War II, and director from 1960 to 1963. He made major contributions to Cypriot archaeology through his excavations at numerous sites of many periods, the more important of which include Neolithic Khirokitia-Vouni
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