While poring over nearly century-old photos documenting the University of Cincinnati’s historic excavation at Troy, archivist Jeff Kramer was struck by just how many people worked behind the scenes for years to contribute to its success.

The archivist and research associate in UC’s Department of Classics created a digital archive of pictures and documents from UC archaeologist Carl Blegen’s influential 1930s project that identified nine periods of reconstruction and evidence of a great battle and fiery devastation that some historians said was suggestive of the ransacking of Troy.

A worker holds a clay pot on a workbench. Full Gallery 

Foreman Emin Kani Barin holds a pot he reassembled while working at Troy. Photo/UC Classics

But in the four double volumes published on the project, the workers who made the team’s discoveries possible are mentioned briefly and only once, Kramer said. While this omission was hardly unusual in the early days of archaeology, Kramer said it ignores their important contributions to our understanding of ancient civilizations.

“All the big excavations owe their results to these individuals who are unheralded and unacknowledged,” he said. “They’re not given their due. They’re simply not mentioned.”

One worker in particular stood out in the extensive documentation from the seven-year project:  an Albanian laborer named Emin Kani Barin who went by Kani. Kramer wrote about him and the broader question of acknowledging the invisible workers of archaeology in a paper published in the journal Bulletin of the History of Archaeology.

“These are the people who put shovels in the ground and swung the picks. They were the ones who pulled the artifacts out of the ground,” he said.

Excavations at Troy. Full Gallery 

UC Classics Professor Carl Blegen led excavations at Troy that profoundly changed our understanding of ancient civilizations in the Mediterranean. Photo/UC Classics

Troy of legend

Troy was the backdrop for one of Greek mythology’s most dramatic stories: the Trojan War between the Greeks and Trojans and the ransacking of Troy mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid.

You can read a lot more written by Michael Miller published in an article in the University of Cincinnati’s web site at: https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2024/07/uc-archivist-explores-troys-invisible-workers.html