When the time comes, burry me like an Illyrian.

Ivory tablets found in Durrës

Read on - it is a happy thing!

The ivory tablets above were found in Durrës in 1979 by archaeologist Fatos Tartari in a monumental tomb of the Illyrian era. The tablets were placed inside a large glass urn filled with a black liquid believed to have served for their preservation in time. Along the tablets were also found two styluses used for engraving on them and an ebony comb which, among other ornamental features, indicated it was the burial place of a woman. I mean, an Albanian woman would not leave her house without a comb in her purse, let alone enter the afterlife without one! The journey there may take one moment only, but hair gets dishevelled anyway and an Albanian woman would not face God (then believed gods) while unpresentable. We still take great care that our dead look their best when they depart for their journey, though Islam has hugely toned this down and deprived us of our pagan and then Christian joy in beauty, be that in death.

The tablets are of greater interest though. They are believed to mark figures that indicate various sums of money and interests people owed to the woman which, in turn, indicates that not only was she a high-class lady, but one actively involved in the trade and financial spheres of the time. Our women have a long history of noble independence earned and maintained by valour and worth, not screeching feminism.

Scholars believe the placement of this book of debts in her tomb may be linked to Illyrians belief in the afterlife. Some argue that it was to show that her role as a moneylender would be preserved in the afterlife as well, with her collecting wealth and favour there as well, like a true Illyrian hoarder – hoarding being part of the Illyrian heritage that I practice quite well, thus identifying with my ancestry, though unconsciously and nor through piracy!

However, my personal interpretation of the placement of the book of debts in the woman’s tomb is two-fold. The first one is as follows: the woman’s relatives believed the book of debts would be shown to the gods in an effort to impress them with either the great wealth she possessed in life (some of the debts were registered as more than 2,000 denarii – ten times more than a Roman soldier’s annual salary) or the good she must have done to others by lending them money, not as a usurer but as a decent Illyrian to other fellow Illyrians – gentile to gentile. After all, having many Lek and a big heart are two things that would still give a lot of pride to many of us modern Illyrians as well. In this regard, I can only pride myself on the figurative greatness of my heart. I still have to earn God’s favour in terms of possessing many Lek.

The second interpretation that I would offer, the less-likely one, is that such a practice might be the source for our tales of lugetër (zombie-like creatures) tormenting the living. People owed money to the woman, and she would collect them, in this life or the other. So the debtors, under the stigma of debt that still is strong in us today as a crusher of pride and self-confidence, could not fathom themselves finally free of debt with the moneylender’s death. She still had her book of debts and she would haunt them until they paid… and now interests were, shall we say, otherworldly. Modern bank interests seem to have taken notice.

I don’t think the second is the correct interpretation though. It may have some connection, but it cannot be the interpretation of the burial ritual per se. After all, the woman was most certainly not a Jewish usurer – not because there were no Jews at all travelling to and from Durrës in Illyrian times, but, first, they did not burry their people in this fashion and second, no pirate-wise Illyrian would grant these moneylending to foreigners and not raid them when they’d had enough. We have no reports of such things ever having taken place in Illyria. Plus, a Jewish usurer would rightly see no need to enter the afterlife with a book of debts with her, due to their non-pagan religion; also, in the Jewish community, trade and finance was predominantly the men’s field. The Illyrian society was more classic European-minded in this regard, we were still very pagan and this is a pagan thing.

So, yeah, this would be one nice practice to reintroduce to our burial practices, a book of the goods one has done while on this earth, all preserved in a way that it is still readable when our tombs become part of archaeological campaigns. Its purpose would not be to impress God – His grace to us is already unchallengeable-impressive and should be the first thing engraved in this book. Its purpose would be to bear witness and to serve as inspiration and awe to those reading our lives when our names are long forgotten.