accompanied by a modern and systematic guide. In his last fifteen years as curator, Deschmann (a naturalist by profession) succeeded in applying high standards of systematization and research to prehistoric archaeology, extending its goals far beyond the antiquarianism and ethnocentrism practiced by many scholars, as well as by the Carniola Historical Society. With his fieldwork, archaeological studies, and organizational skills, he developed the museum to an exemplary level among all of the museums in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Subsequent curators broke with the natural history tradition. Alfons Müllner (1888–1903) reorganized the archaeological collection according to typological principles and consequently irreparably demolished the original grave-and-hoard contexts of the finds. He also published an important catalog of finds in 1900, which was considered to be the model publication for typological studies of artifacts in Austria. Müllner also significantly contributed to the development of the Roman collection in the museum. His successor, Walter Schmid (1905– 1909), applied a different, historical approach to archaeology. One of Schmid’s principal objectives was study of prehistoric and Roman settlement in the southeastern alpine area. He intensively excavated a number of archaeological sites, developing new standards for excavation and new agendas for archaeological studies in Slovenia.

In 1909, the provincial government failed to confirm Schmid’s directorship, and the museum and archaeology in general in Carniola were left without a professional archaeologist for nearly two decades. Museum directors and curators were either historians or ethnographers and were very much involved in the cultural and political life of the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, after 1919, with the newly constituted national and political entity of Slovenes within the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. rajko lozar, an archaeologist, ethnographer, and art historian who worked in the museum as an assistant curator and librarian (1928–1940) provides a good example. During his period as curator (1929– 1940), the museum gradually lost its central role in archaeological research in Slovenia. Although Lozar contributed some important archaeological studies, such as those on the history of Slovenian archaeology and early Slavonic pottery, much of his effort was devoted to other scientific, cultural, and political issues, and in 1940, he became director of the Ethnographic Museum of Slovenia. Schmid (at the Graz Museum from 1919) and Balduin Saria, professor of ancient history at the University of Ljubljana, were responsible for the major archaeological works and studies during the period between the two world wars.

The first years after World War II were marked by considerable structural changes in Slovene archaeology. New and national institutions were established in the late 1940s to plan the development of archaeology. The Department of Archaeology at the University of Ljubljana became the major archaeological educational institution, and the Institute of Archaeology at the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences became the major research institution for archaeology. The National Museum became the central museum institution in the newly created Republic of Slovenia.

One of the major problems for Slovenian archaeology in the late 1940s was the lack of well-trained, professional personnel. Almost all the prewar archaeologists had emigrated, and a new generation of archaeologists was needed. The role of reestablishing an archaeological service at the National Museum was given to jožef kastelic, who was its director between 1945 and 1969. The only active professional archaeologist among the archaeologists of the pre-1945 period who had stayed in Slovenia, he reorganized the museum into a number of specialized departments and pioneered archaeological research work at important sites such as the Slavonic cemetery at Bled and the early–Iron Age barrows at sticna. Kastelic also played an important part in establishing a regional museum network in Slovenia in the 1950s. He initiated the new series of Situla, Argo, and Arheolo-ki katalogi. Under his directorship, the National Museum became a central national institution and gradually reached a highly respected level in the international networks.