Butrint 4: The Archaeology and Histories of an Ionian Town

By Inge Lyse Hansen and Richard Hodges

This richly illustrated volume discusses the histories of the port city of Butrint, and its intimate connection to the wider conditions of the Adriatic. In so doing it is a reading, and re-reading, of the site that adds significantly to the study of Mediterranean urban history over the longue durée . Firstly, the book proposes a new paradigm for the development-history of Butrint - based on discussions of the latest archaeological, historical and landscape studies from approximately 20 new excavations and surveys, together covering a temporal arch from prehistory to the early modern period. Secondly, it examines how the perception of the city influenced the archaeological methodology of 20th-century studies of the site, where iteration and reversal were often being applied in equal measure. In this it asks important questions on the management of heritage sites and the contemporary role of archaeological practise. Inge Lyse Hansen is Adjunct Professor of Art History at John Cabot University and specialises in the visual and material culture of the Roman world. She has published on portraiture, funerary art and the use of role models and patronage and has edited several archaeological volumes. Richard Hodges is Scientific Director of the Butrint Foundation, a leading medieval archaeologist and the author of more than 20 books. Sarah Leppard has led or participated in more than 15 excavations in eight countries and has managed major excavations at Butrint.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Jan 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781782971023

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Preface and acknowledgements

We may agree that ancient history is often used to be too urban in outlook, but what is needed now is not paradox or exaggeration but a balanced approach which recognizes the crucial element that towns represented – even in the Bronze Age Mediterranean and certainly later.

William Harris

This volume brings together seventeen studies of Butrint from its Bronze Age origins until its present success as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Butrint, ancient Buthrotum, sits at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. It is tucked off to the east side of the Straits of Corfu, directly opposite Corfu’s mountainous north coast. ‘Corfu lies like a sickle beside the flanks of the mainland’, Lawrence Durrell reminds us in The Greek Islands, ‘forming a great calm bay, which narrows at both ends so that the tides are squeezed and calmed as they pass it.’ From this extraordinary setting, Butrint commands the sea-routes up the Adriatic Sea to Venice, across to Sicily and Spain, and south through the Ionian Sea to the Aegean. Like ancient Dyrrhachium (Epidamnus in the 7th century BC; modern Durrës) to the north, it also controlled a passage into the mountainous Balkan interior. Here began a route to Thessalonika and, beyond, Constantinople. Each of the studies in this collection illustrates the importance of studying a Mediterranean town not just for its celebrated moments in time but also for those periods when it was reduced to little more than fortified fishing-traps. Our aim has been to review all aspects of the archaeology and history, paying special importance to its long history as a fortified port and its significance as a gateway into a fertile micro-region reaching up as far as the inland town of Konispol. Each of these reports aims also to situate the archaeology not within a national framework but within the broader arena of Mediterranean studies.

The authors and editors are particularly grateful to Lord Rothschild and Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, who established the Butrint Foundation in 1993, and with great determination have sustained it. We owe a special debt to Dr. David Packard, President of the Packard Humanities Institute, for his singular support in a partnership with the Butrint Foundation.

Our thanks, too, to other supporters of these excavations: in particular, Dame Drue Heinz of the Drue Heinz Trust, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, and the World Monuments Fund. We also wish to acknowledge a grant from the British Academy for the 1994 season. The conservation and presentation of the excavated site in 2005 was made possible by support from the Howard and Nancy Marks Family Fund. A grant from John Cabot University covered image reproduction fees for this volume.

We are especially indebted to Sir Patrick Fairweather, formerly British ambassador to Albania (1992–96), and from 1997–2004, the Director of the Butrint Foundation. Thanks, too, to Daniel Renton, Director of the Foundation between 2004–6 who oversaw the conservation and presentation of the Triconch Palace; to Rupert Smith, Director of the Foundation during 2007–8; and to Brian Ayers, Director during 2008–2012.

Our thanks to Iris Pojani and Diana Ndrenika successive Directors of the International Centre for Albanian Archaeology, now the Albanian Heritage Foundation, in Tirana. Thanks also to our Albanian colleagues: Lorenc Bejko, Neritan Ceka, Ylli Cerova, Dhimitër Çondi, Reshad Gega, Ilir Gjipali, Shpresa Gjongecaj, Gjerak Karaskaj, Telemark Llakhana, Etleva Nallbani, Guri Pani and Artan Shkrelli. Finally, we owe a special debt to the Director of the Institute of Archaeology during the course of these excavations, Professor Muzafer Korkuti.

We are grateful to the many institutions that have grated permission to reproduce images: the Albanian Heritage Foundation; the Archivio di Stato di Venezia; the Arheološki muzej Narona; the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Kriegsarchiv, as well as to the Taddei family archive, the Museo della Civiltà Romana and the Instituti i Arkeologjisë for their invaluable, long-term support.

The project began with the support of the British School at Rome, where Maria Pia Malvezzi and Tommaso Astolfi played an instrumental role in the early years. Since 1996 it has formed part of the research programme of the Institute of World Archaeology in the University of East Anglia, Norwich.

Richard Hodges and John Mitchell made the initial visit in 1993 with Gjergj Saraçi, Kosta Lako and Astrid Nanaj at the invitation of Professor Namik Bodinaku, then Director of the Institute of Archaeology, and with the support and encouragement of Lord Rothschild and Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover of the Butrint Foundation as well as Sir Patrick Fairweather, then British ambassador to Albania.

Richard Hodges and Gjergj Saraçi served as co-directors of the Butrint Foundation project from 1994–96; and Richard Hodges and Kosta Lako with Ilir Gjipali were codirectors from 1998–99. Richard Hodges and Ilir Gjipali were co-directors from 2000–2010. The field seasons were: September 1994; April 1995; September–October 1995; April 1996; September 1996; and September 1998. The September–October 1999 season was devoted to studying the finds. There then followed eleven major seasons of excavations: April–May 2000; June–July 2001; June–July and September–October 2002; April–July 2003; May–July 2004; June–July 2005; June–July 2006; June–July 2007; June–July 2008 being primarily a finds season; and May–July 2009. Sally Martin acted as project manager of the 1994–2003 seasons; Louise Schofield project managed the 2004 season, Andrew Crowson the 2005–2010 seasons. Site photography was by James Barclay-Brown, Steve Diehl, Brian Donovan, Alket Islami, Martin Smith and Massimo Zanfini, as well as the Butrint Foundation team.

Site conservation and presentation of all the excavated remains within Butrint and on the outer-lying sites since 2005 was masterminded by Daniel Renton; the conservation of the monuments was led by Rene Rice and Albana Hakani, with on site conservation of the mosaics by Jacques Neguer and Elda Omari. The illustrative panels around Butrint were made by Studio Inklink of Florence.

A small army of excavators took part in these projects. Special thanks should go to David Bescoby, Peter Crawley, Oliver Gilkes, Emily Glass, Simon Greenslade, Benen Hayden, Charlotte Hodges, Valbona Hoxha, Valbona Hysa, Solinda Kamani, Sarah Leppard, Sarah Lima, Matthew Logue, Sinoida Martallozi, Nevila Molla, Jerry O’Dwyer, John Percival, Erjona Qilla, Alessandro Sebastiani and Riley Thorne.

The processing of the finds was managed by David Boschi and Inge Lyse Hansen, and in 2008–9 by Sarah Leppard, assisted by Ilir Papa, Blerina Shametaj, Liri Shametaj and Sabina Veseli. Pippa Pearce masterminded the finds conservation. Finds photography and illustration was undertaken by James Barclay-Brown, Patricia Caprino, Michael Grayley, Adelheid Heil, Julia Jarrett and Martin Smith. Paul Reynolds has studied the Roman pottery and Joanita Vroom has studied the medieval ceramics. Sarah Jennings has been responsible for glass, and John Mitchell for the small finds. The Hellenistic and Roman coins have been studied by Richard Abdy, Shpresa Gjongecaj and Sam Moorhead, and the Byzantine and Medieval coins by Pagona Papadopoulou. The Butrint Physical Anthropology Project was led by Todd Fenton. Adrienne Powell managed all the faunal remains. John Giorgi reviewed the palaeobotaical evidence, and David Bescoby provided assistance with the geomorphology and issues relating to seismic episodes. Management of the team’s accommodation and daily routine was overseen by Gjoni Marko from 2001–5. Mention should also be made of tireless Muzafer Lazë, our driver and general factotum.

To all these friends and collaborators who worked we extend our warmest, heart-felt thanks.

Finally, this book is dedicated to the memory of the late Sarah Jennings, a friend and colleague on this project for a decade, and a friend to one of the editors for nearly forty years. Sarah was a consummate professional, working systematically through the exceptional collection of glass fragments from the many episodes in the long history of this Ionian town. Her presence and her knowledge are sorely missed by all of us.

References

Durrell, L. (1978) The Greek Islands. London, Thames and Hudson.

Harris, W. V. (2005) Rethinking the Mediterranean. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Fig. 0.1. The location of Butrint in the Mediterranean

Fig. 0.2. The location of Butrint in the Ionian Sea

Fig. 0.3. Butrint and its hinterland

1    Excavating away the ‘poison’: the topographic history of Butrint, ancient Buthrotum

Richard Hodges

Modern history was born in the nineteenth century, conceived and developed as an instrument of European nationalism. As a tool of nationalist ideology, the history of Europe’s nations was a great success, but it has turned our understanding of the past into a toxic waste dump, filled with the poison of ethnic nationalism, and the poison has seeped deep into popular consciousness. Clearing up this waste is the most daunting challenge facing historians today.

Patrick Geary¹

Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint has been the site of a Greek colony, a Roman city and a bishopric. Following a period of prosperity under Byzantine administration, then a brief occupation by the Venetians, the city was abandoned in the late Middle Ages after marshes formed in the area.

UNESCO World Heritage List: Butrint²

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Butrint for much of its recent history has been a subject of nationalist interpretation.³ Dissect UNESCO’s 1992 inscription, as we shall do later in this chapter, and it is clear that the World Heritage Centre imbibed the ‘poison’ Patrick Geary describes as a trait of nationalism. Little interest has been expressed by this global arbiter in Butrint’s larger Mediterranean context. Instead, UNESCO, following closely the largely nationalist conclusions drawn by Italian, Greek and Albanian archaeologists, focussed upon its location and apparent continuous history in terms of the contemporary texts associated with it.⁴ These texts have been deployed to define it as Greek, Roman, Christian, Byzantine, and briefly Venetian, omitting an Ottoman presence altogether. It might be exaggerated to describe this as a toxic history (to use Geary’s term), but the Butrint Foundation excavations made between 1994–2009 show that the changing topographic character of the site differs markedly from its reduction to a place of enduring occupation until the environment contributed significantly towards terminating town life.

As we shall see, Butrint for much of its history belonged to the wider conditions of the Adriatic Sea (Fig. 1.1). More specifically, it was either an outlier on the Epirote coast of Corfiot interests or a stronghold on the Straits of Corfu deliberately challenging Corfiot interests. This much was in evidence when Butrint and Cape Styllo to the immediate south were unexpectedly apportioned to the new republic of Albania in August 1913 at the Treaty of London after the Great Powers succumbed to aggressive Italian diplomatic pressure and agreed that the Straits of Corfu, being of such crucial strategic importance, should not be controlled by one nation state, Greece, but by two: Albania (on the Epirote side) and Greece (on the Corfiot side).⁵ This decision in the summer of 1913 inadvertently created a historical place for Butrint. First, it was isolated in a no-man’s land on the southern border of the new republic of Albania in a largely Greek-speaking territory, then since 1992, in post-communist times, Butrint has established a renewed relationship with Corfu insofar as tourists from the Greek island, mostly on day tours, provide significant income to Albania’s premier UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Butrint Foundation project, launched in 1993 (and in the field in 1994), described in this volume took its point of departure from the previous studies of Butrint, principally the 1928–40 Italian mission and the post-war socialist excavations. These earlier excavations, as is discussed below, were undertaken with explicit nationalist motives. No less significantly, large areas within Butrint were excavated by teams of workmen but very little of the excavated evidence was reported upon.⁶ Almost no stratigraphic records from pre-1992 were published, and most reports from these Italian and early Albanian excavations pay little attention to associated finds. Instead, the interpretation of Butrint’s long history before 1992 rested primarily upon interpretations of the architectural, artistic and largely undated topographic elements found at the site. On occasions epigraphic evidence was used to affirm interpretations of Butrint’s history.

By contrast, our point of departure for the excavation methodology was Martin Carver’s Arguments in Stone that readily assumed (as we did) that a north European methodology (rooted in north European historiographic traditions) might be easily translated to a Mediterranean context.⁷ As in many similar projects, such an assumption was soon to be dispelled. First, our Albanian collaborators, as we have recorded elsewhere, had their own historical paradigm rooted in sustaining a national myth that took no account of contemporary historiography.⁸ Second, although our approach involved sampling on a major scale, identifying stratigraphic deposits as predicated by Carver’s method, this was complicated by tree cover, by the changing and high water table, and most of all by the realization that only open-area excavation with an immense commitment to labour and post-excavation analysis offers a suitable instrument for interpreting inter-period and intrasettlement differentiations.

Figure 1.1. View of Butrint, Lake Butrint and the Straits of Corfu from Mount Mile

Put more baldly, Carver’s method, which advocated small-scale excavation to solve specific problems of urban topography, together with computer-generated simulations known as ‘deposit modelling’ between excavated samples, did not work in the context of late antique and medieval Butrint. Problems of residuality, the repeated remodelling and re-use of structures throughout the Roman period and the large-scale secondary movement of deposits in antiquity (during construction work and terracing) meant that the results of keyhole archaeology were inconclusive at best and totally misleading at worst. As a result, our initial investigations from 1994–99, summarized in Byzantine Butrint, although dramatically increasing our understanding of Butrint, provided only an imprecise overview of the town and its changing topography.⁹

Many projects would have halted after this extensive range of investigations but, with support from the Packard Humanities Institute, from 2000–09 we developed a constellation of major excavations (Fig. 1.2). Large excavations were initially opened at the Triconch Palace to review a waterside sector of the city, and at the lakeside villa at Diaporit, identified in the field survey 4 km northeast of Butrint.¹⁰ Concurrently, we embarked upon a programme to identify the suburb of Butrint on the Vrina Plain, first by a new extensive geophysical survey (following initial surveys in 1996–1998) with an associated study of the environmental conditions, initially by test-trenching along a drainage dyke made in the 1960s, and then by making two large open-area excavations focussed upon two very different parts of the suburb.¹¹ The combined area of the project’s excavation trenches covers approximately 8,250 m².

These excavations, supported in particular by the remarkable knowledge and dedication of our ceramic specialists, Paul Reynolds and Joanita Vroom, have given us an entirely new understanding of the urban history of Butrint from its earliest occupation until the Ottoman age. Plainly, some of this approach evolved strategically to confront different period-based paradigms. However, our understanding of the 7th- to 12th-century history has been enhanced not always as a result of judgements taken to identify these periods but by serendipity, in that some of the most significant discoveries relating to the Byzantine Dark Age have been more by accident than design.¹² How, we need to ask, are we to interpret this serendipity – bearing in mind of course, the same serendipity for the most part has determined the survival of the historical texts that form the framework for this period?

Serendipity entered into this as the chance arose to excavate a limited area in the centre of Butrint with a view to finding the Roman forum. Further opportunities then followed – (i) to explore a section of the acropolis prior to backfilling and landscaping the 1990–94 excavations as well as the eastern summit prior to landscaping, (ii) to excavate ahead of conservation of the Western Defences, and (iii) to investigate an area adjacent to the well of Junia Rufina beside the northern postern gate, known as the Lion Gate.¹³ These new excavations, executed with a knowledge gained from the excavations at Diaporit, the Vrina Plain and the Triconch Palace, have been particularly important for developing a new understanding of the Byzantine period. Based upon these new excavations, we have re-examined many of the standing monuments, including the fortifications, the Great Basilica and, in so doing, discovered close to the Water Gate the remains of a Roman bridge.¹⁴

Figure 1.2. Map showing the location of the Butrint Foundation excavations and geophysical survey, 1993–2010

There has been, in other words, a sequence of investigations that initially followed a strategy of the kind propagated by Carver, which serendipitously gave rise to excavation opportunities, which in turn have lead to the development of new field strategies. In this chapter, we shall examine the topographic evidence arising from this mixture of approaches to Butrint, culminating in a proposed new paradigm for the history of the site.

Changing paradigms

Colonel William Martin Leake was by no means the first to take an interest in Butrint’s archaeological remains, but his account laid the foundations for subsequent research of ancient Buthrotum.¹⁵ His visit by boat in 1805 was not published for thirty years, but the ample and romantic description of the ancient city located in this marginal maritime environment almost certainly served as an impetus and guide for the Italian prehistorian Luigi Maria Ugolini’s first visit in 1924. Ugolini was no less of a romantic than Colonel Leake. On behalf of his government, Ugolini’s task was to establish an Italian archaeological presence in Albania in effect to compete with the new French archaeological project at Apollonia near Albania’s oilfields.¹⁶ But Ugolini proved a master at sustaining his political obligations while pursuing a contemporary research agenda. He tells us in the preface of his Butrinto. Il mito d’Enea, gli scavi – a monograph he dedicated to Benito Mussolini – that he wished to emulate Heinrich Schliemann, the excavator of Mycenae and Troy by unearthing a place associated with the mythic figure, Aeneas.¹⁷ Unsaid, he was seeking a connection between the founder of Rome and this small lagoonal place in Albania. Following in Virgil’s footsteps, he paid homage to the political court in Mussolini’s ‘new’ Rome, just as Virgil brought Butrint into his mythic story of Aeneas, paying discreet homage to the princeps and to the family of Agrippa, the architect of Octavian’s victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, whose in-laws owned property at Butrint.¹⁸ In fact, Ugolini’s massive archaeological campaigns between 1928–36 found very little he could precisely relate to Virgil’s account in The Aeneid (Fig. 1.3). The ‘Troy in miniature’, as Virgil had christened it, was essentially a late Hellenistic and Roman city with precious little that shed light on its earlier origins. The Scaean gate (the Lake Gate) to which Ugolini somewhat self-consciously contrived to ascribe Trojan allusions, was constructed in the later Hellenistic period about a millennium after the fateful events involving the Trojans described by Virgil. Ugolini undoubtedly knew this well, but masterfully marketed the connection to help resource his project. Indeed, Ugolini’s efforts to seek Bronze Age origins that might shed light on the era of the Trojan exiles were restrained in comparison to his desire to furnish Butrint with a diachronic context that was exceptional for the era. In keeping with the ethos of the 1920s and 1930s, using large numbers of workmen, Ugolini and his small staff uncovered large tracts of the south side of Butrint, and made small-scale excavations on the acropolis, in the northern citadel and in the cemetery immediately outside the West Gate (Fig. 1.3). Working on this considerable scale, spread out across the site, his investigations enabled him to chart the vicissitudes of the site from the Archaic Greek period through to the Venetian age, with considerable emphasis being placed upon a ribbon of continuity that spanned more than two millennia. In this way, by implicit virtue of this continuity, Butrint retained a connection to Rome, severed only by the rise of the Turks and the loss of Butrint to the Ottomans in 1797. Through these connections, extending over millennia, Ugolini aimed to establish Italian propriety to Butrint and, perhaps too in the early uncertain years of the new League of Nations, to this strategically located bulwark on the Straits of Corfu.

Figure 1.3. Map showing the location of the excavations by the Italian mission, 1928–40

After the Second World War Butrint remained in a frontier area and therefore largely neglected until in 1959 Enver Hoxha decided to show the site to Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet party secretary.¹⁹ The Saranda-based archaeologist, Dhimosten Budina, trained in the Soviet Union, was charged with constructing the 20 km-long road from Saranda via Ksamil to the site for the Soviet leader’s visit, making Butrint accessible to motorised transport for the first time. The road also provided access to the no-man’s land beyond, where exiles from the Greek civil war were settled. This new venture made industrialised agriculture feasible in these marshlands. It also facilitated the making of Butrint into an archaeological park, a cultural heritage destination for the small number of foreign tourists, bringing invaluable hard currency. Butrint was now fenced, the western limits running just beyond the medieval defences, and a new entrance was created close to the new chain ferry link across the Vivari channel (which connected the Saranda road to the collective farms and villages southeast of Butrint). By the end of the 1960s a path had been laid through the park, connecting the principal features found or made by Luigi Maria Ugolini.

Easier access as well as its newly recognized cultural heritage value in turn led to a steady reprise of archaeological interest in Butrint over the following forty years. Led by Budina, Albanian archaeologists first explored the environs of Butrint encompassing the Vrina Plain and the Pavllas Valley to the southeast in advance of intensive agrarian investment – a frontier no-man’s land between Albania and Greece since 1945.²⁰ From the 1970s Budina and a new generation of Albanian archaeologists concentrated upon elaborating Ugolini’s model within the framework of the explicitly nationalist policies of the era.²¹ Given, therefore, Albania’s obsession with fortification, as an isolated country at odds with most European countries, it is hardly surprising that it was Butrint’s well-preserved defences that caught the imagination of the next generation to work here. Muzafer Korkuti, long time Director of the Institute of Archaeology, put it explicitly as follows: ‘The Albanians built castles … to defend themselves from the attacks which came from all directions’.²² Between the late 1960s and early 1980s Apollon Baçe, Neritan Ceka and Gjerak Karaiskaj all published major studies laying great emphasis upon the long sequence of fortifications beginning in the Archaic Greek era and ending in the Ottoman age.²³ Added to this, while many small-scale excavations were made, only one of substance was undertaken and published – by Kosta Lako in 1975–76 – and this too concentrated upon the fortifications (the only other major studies published in this era were by Aleksandër Meksi, who had made architectural surveys of the Great Basilica and Baptistery in 1983).²⁴ All the other excavations in this period were essentially unpublished and in many cases not recorded in much detail (Fig. 1.4). Limited by the inability to obtain post-war foreign archaeological studies, new interpretations of Ugolini’s research were bound to be difficult.

Indeed, just as Ugolini’s mission was guided by an unstated Italian political mission to establish a cultural bulwark on the Straits of Corfu in the midst of an unsettled Greek minority, so the post-war socialists were directed by Enver Hoxha’s maxim mounted on the Butrint museum shortly after his death (Fig. 1.5):

Përveç kulturës Helene e Romake në këtë zonë ishte zhvilluar edhe lulëzonte një kulturë tjetër e lashtë. Kultura Ilire.

Besides the Greek and Roman cultures, another ancient culture developed and prospered here: the Illyrian culture.

In this case, though, Hoxha explicitly urged his archaeologists to seek their nationalist roots in some continuity with the country’s Illyrian past, a mission given full expression in a speech the dictator gave at Shkodra in 1979.²⁵

Ne jemi pasardhësit e fiseve ilire. Në këto troje të lashta të të parëve tanë kanë vërshuar grekët, romakët, normandët, sllavët, anzhuinët, bizantinët, venedikasit, osmanët e shumë e shumë pushtues të tjerë, por ata nuk i zhdukën dot as popullin shqiptar, as kulturën e vjetër ilire, as vazhdimësinë e saj shqiptare.

We are the descendents of the Illyrian tribes. Into the land of our ancestors have come Greeks, Romans, Normans, Slavs, Angevins, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans and numerous other invaders, without having been able to destroy the Albanian people, the ancient Illyrian civilisation and later the Albanians.

Post-war research at Butrint, therefore, had three limited but specific aims. First, following Khrushchev’s visit, Butrint was increasingly employed as a cultural heritage attraction to obtain foreign currency. This culminated in the reconstruction of the Butrint museum in 1988, enlarging the inter-war version created by Ugolini. Second, only limited effort was made to enlarge the diachronic knowledge of the archaeological site and its immediate surroundings; instead, Ugolini’s interpretation of Butrint was sustained even though the statue to him erected before the Second World War was removed (because he was considered an imperialist and fascist). Third, several studies concentrated upon the prominent fortifications of Butrint, accentuating the notion that in earlier ages the country had always been subjected to near continuous invasion, invariably by western imperialists.

Ugolini’s model not surprisingly was the basis of the Butrint Foundation research project that began in 1994. There were some differences, however. The Butrint Foundation set out at once to comprehend the environmental context and settlement history of the lagoon, enlarging upon the field survey made by Dhimosten Budina in the 1960s. Perhaps the most important outcome of this was to show that remains of the ancient town were not confined to the promontory explored and known since Colonel Leake’s time. Across the Vivari Channel, on the Vrina Plain, a Roman nucleus existed that was also occupied in late Roman and mid-Byzantine times. It also demonstrated beyond doubt that the environmental circumstances at Butrint have never been static, and in different ways over nearly three millennia the people here have adapted accordingly.

Figure 1.4. Map showing the location of the principal excavations by Albanian archaeologists, 1959–92

Figure 1.5. Bronze inscription erected in the Butrint Museum in the late 1980s

A topographic history

Luigi Maria Ugolini and the Albanian archaeologists who excavated at Butrint between 1945–92 viewed it as continuously occupied from Archaic Greek to Venetian times, acknowledging of course the changing scale of the town at different points in this continuum. Butrint was eternal until the Ottomans seized and, in effect, closed it, looking eastwards rather than to the Mediterranean. This interpretation, as we have already indicated, rests on an interpretation of the texts and architecture, not the archaeology. The new archaeological evidence points to an altogether different history.

First, the history of the lagoon is only now coming into focus.²⁶ The large embayment of later prehistory almost certainly gave rise to fishing opportunities for Middle and Upper Palaeolithic groups whose plentiful lithics have been found at Butrint itself, close to Xarra and on the south-east shore of Lake Butrint.²⁷ Evidence of Neolithic occupation hereabouts is conspicuously missing. But it is evident that there was still a considerable embayment here during the Middle to Late Bronze Ages, when small communities occupied various prominent hilltop points around the lagoon.²⁸ This changed in the later first millennium BC. During this period the narrow passage known as the Vivari channel formed along the south side of the promontory that was to be Butrint, as to the south there was formed the Vrina Plain. This new topography was certainly apparent by the late Republican period if not earlier, and significantly, the Vrina Plain could be farmed and colonised by the early imperial period. We must envisage that initially, before the 2nd to 1st centuries BC, this also meant that the strip of land between the southern course of the later Hellenistic city wall running just south of the sanctuary of Butrint and the Vivari channel some 80 metres further south could not be colonised and occupied (cf. Fig. 1.7). This was a shortlived condition and certainly by the 1st century AD the city covered the area seen today. Widespread coastal uplift in the Mediterranean between the 4th and 6th centuries AD, in an episode known as the early Byzantine Tectonic Paroxysm, caused a change of between 0.5 and 1 m on the Ionian islands of Kephallonia and Zante, although it was up to 9 m on Crete.²⁹ This sort of tectonic movement almost certainly resulted in a wide range of localised variations, however, and it seems this area of Butrint was lowered by earthquakes in the 4th century.³⁰ The skirt of land immediately to the south of Butrint’s Roman-period forum apparently slumped as a result of tectonic movement (evidenced by the 0.50 m drop on the south side of the forum pavement). From this period onwards the land either side of the Vivari Channel was evidently subjected to seasonal or at least intermittent flooding, making settlement on all but the highest points of the Vrina Plain much less tenable. In fact, a small settlement was sustained on the south side of the Vivari Channel at one key point, close to a deep inlet, up until the 13th century (cf. Figs 1.9, 1.12, 1.13). Then, at about this time increasing amounts of colluvium made permanent occupation intolerable, as it accelerated the flooding and the steady transition of this area into the marshes observed by Leake in the early 19th century and photographed by Ugolini in the 1920s.³¹ Only in the 1960s, with the making of a collective farm at Shën Dëlli, was a reclamation system (that included drainage channels and a pumping station) devised to prevent seasonal inundations. This system collapsed in 1992 and since then the Vrina Plain has reverted to being flooded during the wintertime.

In sum, with the brief exception of the early Roman imperial investment in managed, centuriated farming, this was always a quintessential maritime environment. It was both often inhospitable as a place to build permanent settlement, but also exceptionally rich in fishing resources. It was also on a sea-lane – a major thoroughfare – that provided connections across the width and breadth of the Mediterranean. Lastly, we must note that such environments punctuate the long eastern coast of the Adriatic, as well as parts of the Italian coastline. With these maritime places, we may envisage, the inhabitants of Butrint from time to time found more commonality than perhaps is evident today.

Second, the 1994–96 field survey, followed up intermittently by other surveys by the Butrint Foundation, shows that Butrint was only briefly – in the early Imperial Roman period – at the centre of a densely managed and occupied landscape. Otherwise, in the periods before and after the early Empire, settlement in the immediate vicinity of Butrint was adapted to the minor topographic conditions and often appears to have been ephemeral. Butrint, in other words, it can be surmised, was essentially a place focussed upon exploiting the lagoonal resources as opposed to systematically establishing itself as an agrarian as well as a maritime nucleus.³²

Third, the evolving topography of Butrint is all the more interesting in the light of these environmental circumstances. From the Archaic Greek period until the early Venetian age two axes appear to have been constant. Thereafter, from the 16th to the 20th centuries, until the road to Butrint was constructed in 1959, only one axis served the old town, the Vivari Channel. The two access points to Butrint were replicated in various forms over more than two millennia. The western access appears to have been along the narrow isthmus that connects the promontory to Mount Sotira (behind the present Livia Hotel). The southeastern access was by boat or, during the Roman period, by a bridge to a higher point towards the eastern sector of the lower town (occupied from late antiquity onwards by the Great Basilica). Let us look further at these two access points.

Beginning with the western access, the isthmus led up to a point just below the acropolis where in the later Hellenistic period the West Gate was constructed (Fig. 1.7). Travellers would have reached this isthmus by one of three routes: first, by way of the Vivari Channel and disembarking perhaps at a dock 50 m or so west of Butrint; second, by following the west side of Lake Butrint until it reached the isthmus; third, by boat across Lake Butrint, disembarking on the north side of the narrow isthmus. The 1959 road from Saranda has altogether altered this earlier topography, having been cut into the steep and generally inaccessible south-facing flank of Mount Sotira in order to descend to Butrint. No pre-existing path of any import, we surmise, followed this route but the presence of the Dema wall, belonging to the Hellenistic period, closing off the Ksamil peninsula at the north end of Lake Butrint, suggests that the land route connecting Phoenice to Butrint in this period was at least symbolically important.

Figure 1.6. The topography of Archaic Greek Butrint

On arriving by way of the isthmus at the western shoulder of the acropolis, two points need to be emphasized. First, this access point existed because, we may assume, the ground immediately to the west (i.e. in front of the later Roman to Venetian Western Defences, where the modern gate is located) was subject to seasonal waterlogging.³³ Second, having reached this point on the western shoulder of the acropolis, there were three further feeder routes: (i) up onto the acropolis itself; (ii) from the acropolis to the north citadel (i.e. the northern slopes of the hill); (iii) either from the acropolis to the lower (south-facing) town or, and at certain periods this remains enigmatic, from the point on the western shoulder around the south side of the hill to what, in Hellenistic times became the sanctuary area. The first two feeder routes are fairly straightforward; the third begs further consideration (see below).

The southeastern access point provided a connection between the inland north-south valleys and Butrint. Today, this route descends from the upper northern side of the Pavllas Valley to the village of Xarra before traversing the reclaimed plain to the village of Vrina, and then passing directly to the chain ferry. In other words, the road serves the interests of the communist-period communities here. Before this, the Pavllas River cut across the plain, arriving at an islet in the Vivari Channel opposite Butrint.³⁴ Travellers instead appear to have descended to Xarra and then followed either the top or sides of the ridged hill known as Shën Dimitri, before descending to the marshes below either taking a ‘ferry’ close to Xarra for Butrint or crossing to a point almost directly opposite Butrint where a deep inlet led off the Vivari Channel.³⁵ At the latter point, unidentified by Ugolini and his Albanian successors, adjacent to the line of the Roman imperial aqueduct, a low, multi-arched Roman road bridge connected the plain, possibly first reclaimed in the Hellenistic period, to a point directly in front of the monumental Tower Gate.

Figure 1.7. The topography of later Hellenistic Butrint

The Tower Gate, erected in the Hellenistic period, probably in the later 3rd century is the key here. This elegantly made entrance sits immediately west of the raised easternmost sector of the lower town (where the Great Basilica was later constructed). Three points need to be made about this gate. First, why was the finest Hellenistic gate made some 200 m east of the burgeoning Hellenistic sanctuary and not immediately adjacent to the sanctuary itself? Almost certainly, it represented an entry point that, like the West Gate (on the west shoulder of the acropolis), had an established antiquity. Second, however, the imposing character of the Tower Gate in contrast to the West Gate tends to suggest that this was the principal entry-point to Butrint at this time, and possibly had been previously. Third, situated at the point where the low-lying ground in the lower town meets the rising ground behind, it suggests that the skirt of land between the Tower Gate and the Vivari Channel was not occupied in any effective way. The location of the Tower Gate, we may surmise, prefigured the construction of the road-bridge in early Roman times, and in turn the late antique Water Gate and, beside it, the Great Basilica, which endured as a major church into the later Middle Ages.

Now let us examine the topographic history in a little more detail.

The earliest sedentary occupation at Butrint appears to have been in the Middle to Late Bronze Age and concentrated in the shallow fold midway along the south side of the acropolis (Fig. 1.6). Further occupation was not found at the highest, eastern end, and any evidence at the western end of the hilltop was obliterated by the construction of a castle here in the 1930s. We may conclude, therefore, that this small nucleus was not seeking the most defensible location on the acropolis, or indeed a view overlooking Lake Butrint, but instead was situated at a point where a path traversing the south-facing slope of the acropolis emerged on the saddle on the summit. Of course, if a small nucleus existed at the west end, overlooking the point occupied by the later West Gate, this site in the fold in the centre may have been no more than a subsidiary encampment. Nevertheless, here, intriguingly, the Archaic Greek period sanctuary also appears to have been made, its south-facing side seemingly being elevated by a substantial polygonal terrace wall (Fig. 1.6). The principal elements of the small later 8th- to 6th-century complex (dated by imported Corinthian black-figure wares) was aggregated immediately beyond the raised wall, and extended back into the shallow dip in the saddle of the hill. From this point, the sanctuary looked south to Corfu town in the far distance, besides overlooking the lower town and the marshes beyond. Here, though, a path, we may surmise, descended across the steep south-facing flank of the acropolis. No traces of this period were discovered on the high eastern summit, whilst as before, any evidence at the prominent western end of the hill was obliterated by the construction of the castle (such a western nucleus would have been even more conspicuous from Corfu).³⁶ Were there other Archaic Greek buildings here, down in the lower town beside the presumed later sacred springs for example, or was the modest sanctuary on the acropolis an isolated entity? Sanctuaries seldom occur in isolation, but there is as yet no archaeological evidence to suppose that Butrint at this time was an urban settlement of any kind. This challenges Ugolini’s view, later reaffirmed by Neritan Ceka, amongst others, that the acropolis was entirely enclosed by fortifications at this time.³⁷ With the new research, Hammond’s conclusion that the extant, south-facing Archaic wall was simply a terrace has become increasingly compelling, given the absence of stratified Archaic-period material from the Butrint Foundation excavations.³⁸

The Archaic Greek sanctuary presumably was the impetus for a larger early 4th-century BC sanctuary located directly below the Archaic one. The sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius appears to have complemented the earlier one. Situated at the very bottom of the south-facing acropolis slope in the space between two wells, by the mid 2nd century BC it would comprise a temple, a treasury, a theatre and associated accommodation (Fig. 1.7).³⁹ The acropolis temple would have retained its significance, we may surmise, due to its age and location. Perhaps, as Asclepius and Zeus are both depicted, and in a similar manner, on the first Butrint coinage minted in the late Republic, the temple to Zeus Soter, as yet identified, might be the older sanctuary on the acropolis.

How was the sanctuary to Asclepius approached? This is mere conjecture because all traces have been removed by later construction, but it appears that any pilgrim had three choices: arriving from the southeast through the Tower Gate; arriving along the Vivari Channel, where the Asclepieion Gate provided a surprisingly simple, though defended, access to the sanctuary; arriving by way of the isthmus and either venturing around the western end of the hill, or else, traversed the acropolis, and descended down the slope to reach the south end of the nucleus.

The first walled sanctuary may offer further clues (Fig. 1.7). Almost certainly dating to the late 3rd century BC, these Hellenistic walls enclose a large area, including most of the so-called northern citadel that was well above the water table.⁴⁰ These powerful and well-made walls extended from the new West Gate on the western shoulder of the acropolis and then arced tightly down to a point immediately beyond (i.e. west of) the Asclepian sanctuary, passing along the low-lying ground to the Tower Gate. Several important features have now become evident for the first time. First, the Tower Gate is the most monumental of the gates, and conceivably the ingress used by members of the later koinon who lived in the valley extending eastwards to Çuka e Ajtoit.⁴¹ Secondly, several powerful gates offer ingress to the northern citadel where we may suppose a residential zone was created. Thirdly, the acropolis was not fortified or made into a separate sector of any kind. Fourthly, the sanctuary existed as a kind of appendix to this walled area, tightly packed up against the south-facing slope of the acropolis, unable to extend out onto the skirt of land beyond because at this date it was too marshy. Most probably, at this time an agora of some kind was inserted immediately east of the sanctuary, accessed from the Tower Gate by way of the rising land immediately behind the new south-facing city wall. Lastly, the only graves from this period occur alongside the road traversing the isthmus beyond the West Gate. Possibly the ground on the route southwards, beyond the south side of the Vivari Channel, was too marshy and thus unsuitable for a cemetery.

This was no Greek colony, pace the Unesco inscription (see above), but a small sanctuary that had expanded into a substantial town covering 7 ha. It was also an administrative centre of a koinon encompassing the adjacent valley as far as modern Konispol, a point powerfully made by the imposing Tower Gate, the access to this area. Almost certainly, it benefited from the substantial growth in Republican Roman seaborne trade to the region – especially evident at neighbouring Phoenice – arising from their annexation of Epirus.⁴² As a sanctuary, too, it almost certainly prospered at the expense of the hitherto most important sacred site in the region, Dodona. In size and wealth, though, it was dwarfed by the neighbouring town of Phoenice at this time, which had expansive Adriatic Sea connections.⁴³

The early Roman colony explicitly developed the topographic elements of the Hellenistic town. The origins of the colony have been discussed elsewhere.⁴⁴ Suffice it to note that the new investment here immediately after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC effectively changed its standing vis-à-vis Phoenice, making it now a serious competitor and, equally, must have caused grave disquiet in Corfu, the previously unrivalled urban centre in the region.⁴⁵

No new fortifications graced the colony (Fig. 1.8). Instead, it was furnished with significant new civic investment, foremost of which was the bridge making an easy connection between the Vrina Plain and the preexisting Tower Gate. It is tempting to assume that this was a 45–46-arched bridge resembling the one at Mérida, Spain that would have blocked any large-scale mercantile traffic from Butrint across Lake Butrint to Phoenice and at a stroke provided economic empowerment to the citizens of Butrint (Fig. 1.9). On the other hand, the accompanying aqueduct took a divergent route to the town, probably passing beneath the channel.⁴⁶ If this was indeed the case, we may surmise that a wooden section of the bridge that could be drawn up, or a high-arched central section, permitted boats to pass into the lake towards Phoenice.

Figure 1.8. The topography of Roman Butrint

Figure 1.9. The topography of the Roman city and its cemeteries

The forum too was probably re-fashioned from the earlier agora in this period, as we surmise was a new street grid (Fig. 1.10). Soon afterwards, possibly in the early to mid 1st century AD there was an expansion of the residential areas across the skirt of land separating the Asclepian sanctuary from the Vivari Channel, and then the making of a bridgehead suburb on the south side of the channel. From here, probably at this time, the previously unmanaged, in part marshy landscape was centuriated. The central axis of the first phase of centuriation appears to have followed the Butrint–Çuka e Ajtoit road that led to the Butrint bridge. This urban and agrarian investment closely resembles the broadly contemporary circumstances at another important Roman colony, Corinth.⁴⁷

Figure 1.10. Plan of the agora/forum space

These elements were consolidated in the mid to later 1st and 2nd centuries, with an increasing emphasis upon major houses, with access to the sea and the lake, occupying the plots on the north side of the Vivari Channel, as well as in the suburb at the bridgehead. By now, waterborne maritime traffic, we may surmise, as well as fishing, was a premier resource for the town. A small piazza with a civic building, later a large (public?) granary, of some kind along its north side, may also have been made in this suburb. Tellingly, the cemeteries reveal the increasing economic reach and demographic scale of Butrint as a town. Several small mausolea lay alongside the rocky, north side of the Vivari Channel; a mausoleum lay beside the road leading around the west side of Lake Butrint; lesser burials were interred on the isthmus; others were interred in several mausolea (columbaria?) immediately outside the Lion Gate; and finally, small but well fashioned mausolea lay alongside the road running past the suburb, in advance of a string of gravefields on the Shën Dimitri ridge.⁴⁸

This topographic matrix established in the late 1st century BC and fixed in the 1st century AD appears to have remained largely unaltered until the later 5th century. By this time, Butrint had experienced at least one major earthquake in the 4th century that, together with more widespread tectonic changes, irrevocably reversed the situation beside the Vivari Channel.⁴⁹ These premium channel-side residences now began to suffer seasonal water logging, leading to the cessation of building activity at the Triconch Palace, the largest of these dwellings, during the early to mid 5th century. Even before the construction of a new set of town walls, most probably in the early 6th century, the Roman topography of Butrint was in flux.

Figure 1.11. The topography of late antique Butrint

The late antique walls respected the two principal access points from the isthmus in the west and the road bridge on the east side (Fig. 1.11). Whether the bridge was actually still standing is not altogether certain. But the adjacent Water Gate with its recessed area for mooring boats affirms the importance of this eastern entrance into the town. The walls followed the Hellenistic circuit around the north side of Butrint, but on the south side followed the Vivari Channel. In other words, the Roman residential building on the channel side, notwithstanding the waterlogging here, persuaded the wall-builders to enclose the entire area up to the water’s edge. These new early 6th-century walls demarcated the Butrint that were an index of the town’s extent for Ugolini, the subsequent Albanian archaeologists, and, in 1992, UNESCO’s world heritage centre.

Many features of this new layout merit observation. First, arriving at the West Gate, the traveller might have soon discovered a new sacred area on the very eastern summit of the hill, a basilica with a triconch and a nearby, south-facing tower-house. Second, descending into the lower town, the most formidable towers punctuated the western, seaward-facing, defences.⁵⁰ But much of the old civic centre was now abandoned or occupied by minor dwellings. Third, a gravel road provided access from the gate by the Merchant’s House, leading towards the old civic centre, though by the 6th century, although undoubtedly used by fishermen and smiths, the area once occupied by the former Merchant’s House and Triconch Palace was now used peripherally. Fourth, a significant, perhaps the most significant sector in the town, lay immediately east of the Tower Gate. Here, on raised ground, earlier Roman buildings were demolished to make way for a Great Basilica, which like the triconch church on the summit, commanded the countryside to the east, including the lagoon, rather than the seaway leading to the Straits of Corfu. Lastly, as if to emphasize this eastward countenance, a large basilica with associated buildings was made within the large suburban townhouse occupying the south bridgehead on the Vrina Plain.⁵¹ The imposing presence of the Church in the new urban layout, notwithstanding Butrint’s prominent trading status, was evident.⁵² It is equally evident that the rhetoric of its buildings was designed to dominate the fishing-grounds and route inland.

By the later 6th century much of Butrint including the Vrina Plain basilica was deserted. There is no evidence of any cataclysm or indeed of the arrival, for example, of the Slavs. Steadily, the community shrunk and simply disappeared. Ceramics and coins belonging to the early 7th century occur in small numbers; those from the later 7th century are absent. Sporadic occupation, probably making use of earlier structures, almost certainly continued on the acropolis and in the lower town.⁵³ As well as the acropolis, the principal stronghold at Butrint appears to have been located in at least two towers in the lower town’s west-facing, seaward defences (Fig. 1.12). Here, we may imagine, control – perhaps more symbolic than actual – could be exercised over traffic passing down the Straits of Corfu. Both towers, as it happens, burnt down, sealing a rare and rich assemblage of artefacts from c. AD 800.⁵⁴ Two such cataclysms cannot have been coincidental and strongly suggest that the towers were destroyed deliberately, presumably in an attack.

Figure 1.12. The location of the kastron in the Western Defences, c. AD 800, in relation to the 9th- to 10th-century aristocratic oikos on the Vrina Plain

Who attacked whom? The artefacts show that the towers contained the portable property of a rich household with extensive connections to all quarters of the Byzantine Empire. Butrint, we may deduce with caution, was administered by a commander sympathetic to Byzantium. Yet, the region, known as Vagenetia, was in the hands of a Slavic community, the Baiounetai. Was there some brief uprising as occurred, according to the Monemvasia Chronicles, further south in AD 805 at Patras? Judging from the archaeological evidence, Byzantine interests plainly suffered, but, to judge from the excavated remains on the Vrina Plain, were soon restored.

Excavations in the Roman suburb brought to light the successor to the two tower-houses (Fig. 1.12). Here, in the burnt ruins of the 5th-century basilica (being adjacent to the old road running eastwards, now apparently a sunken trackway, as well as to the embarkation point for Butrint, was the church also destroyed in the attack of c. AD 800?), the aristocratic oikos of the probable commander of Butrint was discovered.⁵⁵ An arrangement of post-holes fire-blasted through the paved narthex of the 5th-century basilica shows that its upper floor was crudely reinforced to take a new residence. A pottery kiln was found close to this building, as were traces of post-built structures. The old nave had been used as a cemetery. Associated with these buildings was a thick deposit of black earth in which 48 bronze coins, Byzantine folles spanning c. 840–950, were found as well as 5 Byzantine