Tim Kaiser

In the summer of 2000, Tim Kaiser discovered a hidden chamber in a Croatian cave that contained the undisturbed remains of an Illyrian cave that contained the undisturbed remains of an Illyrian cult sanctuary dating from the first millennium BC. This was a momentous find for Kaiser, and archeologist specializing in the prehistory and antiquity of the Balkans, for until recently, very little was known about the Illyrians’ beliefs, cults and symbolic lives.

The chamber in the Nakovana Cave (located in Dalmatia on Croatia’s Adriatic coast) revealed an astonishing phallic stalagmite, which was surrounded by ritual artifacts. The excavation of the unusual site, which had been sealed for the last 2,000 years, also provided new insight into the Illyrian people, contemporaries of the ancient Greeks.

Kaiser is the director of the Nakovana Cave Project and a research associate in the Royal Ontario Museum’s Department of Western Art and Culture.