David Hernandez Uncovers Secrets of Albania’s Past on Way to Graduate
Degree
UC’s classics department has a worldwide reputation as a top department
in its field. The experiences of David Hernandez as a graduate student help show
that that reputation is vibrant and alive in the department’s activities
today.
David has had access to the leading experts in the field of Mediterranean archaeology,
and he’s made the most of those relationships in getting his career off
to a fantastic start.
Since arriving at UC, he has gone from the bottom – the gritty role of
a digger on someone else’s project in 2002 – to, this summer, the
top: He will co-direct a new archaeological project at Amantia, an ancient site
in Albania, in collaboration with Shpresa Gjongecaj, the director of the Albanian
Institute of Archaeology.
“
As a student, I couldn’t be happier with my experience,” he says. “Things
have worked out very well, and I’ve had rare opportunities.”
David is originally from Miami, Fla., and went to school as an undergraduate
at the University of California-Berkeley. He came to UC and immediately was
able to work on the famed site of Troy under the guidance of former UC Professor
of
Classics Brian Rose.
He moved on to Albania with the help of his current advisor, Professor of Greek
Archaeology Jack Davis, who also has worked extensively in the field in that
country. Hernandez began working in 2003 in the ancient city of Butrint, where
large-scale excavations have been undertaken for over a decade by a joint archaeological
collaborative project between Richard Hodges, director of excavations for the
Butrint Foundation, and Ilir Gjipali, deputy director of the Albanian Institute
of Archaeology. Shown a 19th-century traveler’s sketch of ruins in Butrint
by Hodges, David was able to locate a valuable find in a deep, overgrown ravine.
He uncovered a long-lost necropolis that consisted of a series of monumental
tombs, some of which were decorated with vibrant wall paintings.
Back in Butrint for several more seasons, David ascended to become the site’s
field director of new excavations in the urban center of the city, in partnership
with Dhimitër Çondi from the Albanian Institute of Archaeology. David’s
undergraduate degree is in physics, and he sees his studies at UC as a chance
to synthesize his scientific background with an education in the humanities as
he works to understand the construction of history.
His scientific background is helpful in excavation work and helped produce
another major breakthrough by the discovery of the previously unknown forum,
the ancient
civic center of the city. That work has become the basis of David’s dissertation.
David’s team discovered one corner of the forum in 2005, “but you
don’t know what the full dimensions of that rectangle are going to be,” he
says. “Last summer, I made an attempt to find the other corner, and using
certain models of where the aqueduct entered the city and other hypotheses, we
were able to dig a trench where we thought it might be, and we hit it.”
David’s work in 2007 was funded by a Fulbright scholarship, which allowed
him to spend 15 consecutive months living among Albania’s resident archaeological
community.
The forum, according to David, added context to all the previous major finds
in Butrint over the last 70 years of excavation there. “It was also the
first physical proof that the Roman foundation of the city from the Augustan
period has the same basic pattern as is found in the forums at Athens and Corinth
in Greece. That’s an important conclusion. There’s never been any
physical evidence to indicate this region (Epirus) witnessed the same kind of
colonization program, particularly in respect to urban design, as other known
colonial cities in Greece.”
Another amazing aspect of the site was the condition that the forum was found
to be in. A dramatic event, probably an earthquake, occurred in the city around
the middle of the fourth century that caused the forum to stop being used and
eventually end up underwater. The city’s inhabitants moved out whatever
marble they could salvage and reuse. Among the items discovered by David’s
team pertaining to this event was a life-sized marble sculpture that dates to
the second century.
“
We used some of the most advanced methods of excavation in Butrint,” says
David. “It really was a magical time.”
“
David has been rather amazing since he arrived at UC,” says classics Professor
Jack Davis. “I strongly encouraged him to come to UC with the support of
my colleagues, and I’ve been constantly impressed with his ability to adapt
to new situations and acquire new knowledge rapidly.”
Now comes his opportunity in Amantia, an opportunity usually reserved for only
the top experts in the field. He will formulate the research plan with Albanian
archaeologists at the highest levels in order to bring to light lost knowledge
of this ancient city and to contribute a piece to the puzzle of history. But,
over his last six years, it’s hard to argue that David hasn’t risen
to expert level. Just recently he has written a preliminary report on the excavations
of the forum at Butrint that has been accepted for publication in the Journal
of Roman Archaeology, a prestigious journal in the discipline.
Amantia is the site of the only ancient stadium known in Albania and hasn’t
been excavated since the 1950s. With David’s knowledge of modern excavation
methods, that creates some exciting possibilities.
“
There’s a lot of work to be done there, and I hope to work in Albania for
a long time,” he says. “The basis of one’s ability to excavate
in another country is trust. There’s always a lot of apprehension about
exploitation. I’ve developed a good relationship with the archeologists
in Albania.”
“
I would like to think that I have been of some value in encouraging Dave to think
about the broader context in which his discoveries can fit and the contributions
they offer to larger issues concerning economic and social history of the ancient
Mediterranean,” says Professor Davis. “As he moves towards directing
his new project at Amantia, I hope to have many talks with him about organization
of fieldwork, particularly in regards to regional studies of the sort he intends
to institute there.”
