When I arrived at the University of Sarajevo’s Faculty of Philosophy at 1PM, an “elderly, skinny professor with gray hairs” was there to greet me, exactly as planned. When a friend of a friend found out that I study archaeology, she suggested that historian-archaeologist Dr. Imamovi? and I meet. The twinkly-eyed man who showed up had much more of a spring in his step than I’d imagined.
He led me to his third floor office, explaining that this entire building had been destroyed during the war, and that one, too—pointing outside at the National Museum next door, with its ancient grave stones peppering the front lawn. In that time, Imamovi? was head of the faculty and director of the museum because, to hear him meekly tell it, “so many people were leaving.”
When we arrived in the professor’s office, I surreptitiously stared at the shelves full of books of Greek and Roman antiquities, a human skull, leaf fossils, and a giant, non-human molar. During the war, Imamovi? kept teaching, but heavy sniper coverage meant he had to run to get between the two ruined buildings, and much of his teaching collection was looted. Now those empty spots on his shelves are filled with a mortar shell he barely avoided and the WWII food rations he ate to survive. I guess some archaeologists get even more adventure than they were counting on.