TAP is laying 133 miles of four-foot-diameter pipe from east to west across Albania. When archaeological finds require work to stop at a location, pipe laying continues elsewhere.

Two of the 120 skeletons (above) that were found near Turan likely date to the 1600s or 1700s. Beneath these was a burial dating to 700 B.C.

One of the most interesting archaeological discoveries thus far along the route is the settlement of Turan, whose cemetery contains burials spanning some 2,000 years. Located in the middle of a windswept plain of dried mud, today it’s not much to look at.

After human bones first appeared in the area, archaeologists ordered a work stoppage. They had soon uncovered around 120 skeletons tightly packed about four inches apart from each other in a small pipe trench just a foot below the surface. While the bones haven’t been dated yet, archaeologists believe they are from the 1600s or 1700s, and possibly even the 1800s. But directly beneath them, they identified prehistoric burials believed to date back to 700 B.C. “We have found a number of tumulus burials from that period in this area but this is the first flat cemetery we have ever seen in the Korca Basin,” says Bejko. He adds that this important discovery needs further interpretation. Burial artifacts include pottery from more cosmopolitan Greek city-states, perhaps Apollonia on the Adriatic, but also locally made pottery designed to look like “trendy” imports.

Archaeologists hope that the burials will help answer questions about who the people were and their relationship to other settlements. While this area was less socially diverse than settlements to the west where Greek colonies were already established, people here had fertile land for agriculture and engaged in trade. “These guys are much more connected to neighboring or even more distant communities. Even those who couldn’t afford imported goods were able to imitate them,” Bejko says. The cemetery was excavated and studied during the spring and summer and then reburied and covered with mats so that the 40-ton pipe-lifting machines could cross over it. In the end, the pipeline’s path was adjusted to go around the site.

Back at the TAP personnel camp, construction workers and project managers live in reconfigured shipping containers that are surprisingly comfortable and quiet. TAP has strict rules about everything: access to the site, equipment, eating, mandatory safety training, and the taking of photos inside the compound. What might seem a bureaucratic headache elsewhere creates in Albania the unfamiliar yet comforting sensation of a systematic approach, of things being done the right way. After dinner, crew members enjoy one of the last warm nights of late summer by playing volleyball. Sitting at a plastic table, Bejko explains how “development-led archaeology” has transformed the field into a viable profession in Albania and provided financial stability for heritage preservation. “The only way to make archaeology relevant is to link it to economic development, in a sustainable way, and to tourism and education,” says Bejko.

While working at the culture ministry in 2007, Bejko helped draft and implement Albania’s first modern law for cultural heritage, which created mandatory impact assessments and mitigation plans for construction projects in the country. Similar to the systems of funding archaeology in Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Bejko says the new system creates sustainable workplaces for archaeologists and funding for preservation while ensuring that any impact on cultural heritage from construction is mitigated.

Albania only became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, and archaeology was not actively pursued as a scientific endeavor until after the Communist takeover following World War II. Bejko says the political agenda in the years from 1945 to 1991—tightly connected to building the relatively new Albanian nation—focused on shaping the scientific data to proclaim the Ilyrians the most ancient and greatest ethnic and political entity in the region, and the earliest ancestors of the Albanians. “When the Communist system collapsed, I, along with other people of my generation, were lucky enough to be among the first to educate ourselves in the West and make a difference here,” says Bejko. Under the old system, in which everything was planned and financed by the government, there was little funding or capacity for either research or preservation. Most construction in Albania was carried out without any effective oversight. One of the worst cases in the post-Communist era was the destruction of much of the ancient part of Durres (ancient Dyrrachium) on the Adriatic. When the city was modernized, there was no mitigation. No one will ever know how much was lost.

The new approach initially met great resistance from those who grew up under the old Communist regime, including Bejko’s former professors. He was accused of “privatizing” archaeology and had heated disputes with colleagues. Bejko recalls himself saying, “We are archaeologists. We are used to understanding context. So why do you ignore the social and economic context in which we operate? Archaeology is not isolated.” Eventually, his arguments won the day.

Uncovered close to Berat in southern Albania, these two Hellenistic kilns are thought to be part of an ancient production center.

Heading west to Berat the next morning, the car passes through misty fields and valleys capped by yellow haze floating above land being burned before next year’s crops are sown. Simple village cafés, locals selling honey, peppers, and fruit, and shops displaying shiny plastic hubcaps line the road. While writing a text on his smartphone, Bejko observes wryly of emojis, “We are in danger of moving backward toward pictographic script.”

South of Berat, at a work site far from the public road, a team of three archaeologists is finishing off a study of two Hellenistic kilns. TAP’s pipes and equipment sit idly off to the side, as they have for the last three weeks. The organic material left by the two kilns looks like dark splotches in the earth the size and shape of igloos. “This is the remains of a production center, a workshop of some kind,” says Bejko. “The city was not far, so there was a demand for these kinds of products. This workshop was run by a smart local person. The clay here is very good for producing ceramics, and there is no problem finding wood for fuel. We want to understand the technology they used to fire the pottery, the amount produced, and the materials used,” he says. “Sometimes the small sites are very self-contained, but when you add them all up you get a complex landscape.”

Perhaps the most visually impressive site uncovered thus far is a steep terraced hill near the village of Peshtan. The team started work at the bottom of the hill, where the apse of a chapel was spotted during the final trenching investigation before construction began. Working their way up the slope, they uncovered a complex jumble of structures and terraces from a range of eras, cut through by zigzagging streets. The oldest buildings, at the bottom, are thought to have been built in late antiquity, around A.D. 550, while parts of the settlement were used during the Ottoman period, until the 1700s and possibly the 1800s. Workshops were found with storage jars and vessels. A Turkish hammam, or bath, has much of its sophisticated plumbing to transport and heat water still intact. Some of the ceramic pipes from the 1600s look modern and industrial, much like PVC piping you might find at Home Depot today.

The terraced site at Peshtan that was discovered in the pipeline’s path is home to domestic and public buildings dating from the 6th-century A.D. to the Ottoman era.

“We have seen terraces creating individual habitation levels,” says Bejko. “The collapse of the first building served as the terrace of the second building in the later period.” But while they are beautiful to look at, the terraces present special challenges for preservation because they are prone to erosion. The excavated section represents about one-quarter of the larger settlement. “We spent three months here with a large team. Ideally, if you want to expose the whole thing, it would take years,” Bejko says. “Now one asks, ‘Why is it necessary to expose the whole thing? It then becomes very difficult to maintain and preserve and manage. This section is probably enough to understand the basics of the settlement.’”

Albania is a poor but rapidly developing country. It attracted 4.7 million tourists in 2016—a 15 percent increase over the previous year. While most come for the beaches along the relatively undeveloped coast, for low-cost holidays, and for hiking and ecotourism in the mountainous region in the north, the number of visitors to cultural sites is growing even faster. Bejko stresses the importance of archaeology as both a resource to be studied and preserved, and a driver of economic development, but only in a sustainable context. In the case of Peshtan, for example, he says, “I understand the locals wanting to attract more visitors. But we need a stronger story to tie their visit to than just this one site.”

There is rafting on the Osum River nearby, and the archaeological team wants to involve the local Nurellari winery to develop a plan for any potential public archaeological site that could help draw tourists. But there is still no public road to the site—TAP is only leasing the private land until the construction work is finished. Making Peshtan a proper tourist destination would require jumping through a lot of administrative hoops. As more and more of Albania’s history is being uncovered along the TAP route, and as more and more archaeologists are being trained and working there, the country is still learning how best to tell the story of its ancient history.

Matthew Brunwasser is a journalist based in Belgrade, Serbia.