Buthrotum

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**Butrint**^a
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Albania
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iii
Identification	#570
Region^b	Europe and North America
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	1992 16th Session
Extension/s	1999
In Danger	1997-2005
a Name as officially inscribed on the WH List b As classified officially by UNESCO

Buthrotum (Albanian: Butrint or Butrinti) is an ancient city and an archeological site in Albania, close to the Greek border. It was known in antiquity as Βουθρωτόν Bouthroton in Ancient Greek and Buthrotum in Latin. It is located on a hill overlooking the Vivari Channel. Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint has been the site of an Epirot city, a Roman colony and a bishopric.

1 Ancient history
2 Archaeological excavations
3 Directions
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit] Ancient history

Buthrotum was originally a town within the ancient region of Epirus. It was the one of the major centres of the local Chaonian tribe with close contacts to the Greek colony on Corfu and Illyrian tribes to the north. According to the Roman writer Virgil, its legendary founder was the Trojan seer Helenus, the son of King Priam, who had married Andromache and moved West after the fall of Troy. The historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote that Aeneas visited Butrint after his own escape from the destruction of Troy.

First archaeological evidence of sedentary occupation dates to between 10th and 8th centuries BC. The original settlement probably sold food to Corfu and had a fort and sanctuary. Buthrotum was in a strategically important position due its access to the Straits of Corfu. By the 4th century BC it had grown in importance and included a theatre, a sanctuary to Asclepius and an agora.

In 228 Buthrotum became a Roman protectorate alongside Corfu and Romans increasingly dominated Butrint after 167 BC. In the next century, it became a part of a province of Illyricum. In 44 BC, Caesar designated Butrint as a colony to reward soldiers that had fought on his side against Pompey. The local landholder Titus Pomponius Atticus objected to his correspondent Cicero who lobbied against the plan in the Senate. As a result, Butrint received only small numbers of colonists.

In 31 BC, Emperor Augustus fresh from his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium reestablished the plan to make Butrint a veterans' colony. New residents expanded the city and the construction included an aqueduct, Roman bathhouses, a forum complex, and a nymphaeum.

In the 3rd century AD, an earthquake destroyed a large part of the town, levelling buildings in the suburbs on the Vrina Plain and in the forum of the city centre. Excavations have revealed that city had already been in decline and was becoming a manufacturing center. However, the settlement survived into the late antique era, becoming a major port in the province of Old Epirus. The town of late antiquity included the grand Triconch Palace, the house of a major local notable that was built around 425 AD.

Remains of the 6th-century baptistery

In the early 6th century AD, Buthrotum became a bishopric and new construction included a large baptistry, one of the largest such Paleochristian buildings of its type, and a basilica. Emperor Justinian strengthened the walls of the city. The Ostrogoths under King Totila sacked Buthrotum in 550 AD. Evidence from the excavations shows that importation of commodities, wine and oil from the Eastern Mediterranean continued into the early years of the 7th century when the early Byzantine Empire lost these provinces. In this, it follows the historical pattern seen in other Balkan cities, with the 6th to 7th century being a watershed for the transformaiton of the Roman World into the Early Middle Ages.

By the 7th century, following the model of classical cities throughout the Mediterranean, Buthrotum had shrunk to a much smaller fortified post and with the collapse of Roman power was briefly controlled by First Bulgarian Empire before being regained by the Byzantine Empire in the 9th century. It remained an outpost of the empire fending off assaults from the Normans until 1204 when following the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire fragmented, Butirnt falling to the breakaway Despotate of Epirus. In the following centuries, the area was a site of conflict between the Byzantines, the Angevins of southern Italy, and the Venetians, and the city changed hands many times. In 1267, Charles of Anjou took control of both Butrint and Corfu and renovated the walls and the basilica.

The Republic of Venice purchased the area including Corfu from the Angevins in 1386; however, the Venetian merchants were principally interested in Corfu and Butrint once again declined. In 1490, they built a tower and a small fort. The area was lightly settled afterwards.

In 1797, Buthrotum came under French control when Venice ceded it to Napoleon as a part of the Treaty of Campo Formio. In 1799, the local Ottoman governor Ali Pasha Tepelena conquered it, and it became a part of the empire until Albanian independence in 1912. By that time, the site of the original city had been unoccupied for centuries and was surrounded by malarial marshes.

[edit] Archaeological excavations

The first modern archaeological excavations began in 1928 when the Fascist government of Mussolini's Italy sent an expedition to Buthrotum. The aim was geopolitical rather than scientific, aiming to extend Italian hegemony in the area. The leader was an Italian archaeologist, Luigi Maria Ugolini who despite the political aims of his mission was a good archaeologist. Ugolini died in 1936, but the excavations continued until 1943 and the Second World War. They uncovered the Hellenistic and Roman part of the city including the "Lion Gate" and the "Scaean Gate" (named by Ugolini for the famous gate at Troy mentioned in the Homeric Iliad).

After the communist government of Enver Hoxha took Albania over in 1944, foreign archaeological missions were banned. Albanian archaeologists including Hasan Ceka continued the work. Nikita Khrushchev visited the ruins in 1959 and suggested that Hoxha should turn the area into a submarine base. The Albanian Institute of Archaeology began larger scale excavations in the 1970's.

After the collapse of the communist regime in 1992, the new democratic government planned various major developmetns at the site. The same year remains of Butrint were included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. A major political and economic crisis in 1997 and lobbying stopped the airport plan and UNESCO reclassified it as a "Site in Danger" because of looting, lack of protection, management and conservation.

The Albanian Government established the Butrint National Park in 2000 under the leadership of Auron Tare. With the support of Albanian and international institutions the situation was improved to the point that UNESCO removed the site from the danger list by 2005. The National Park was also made a UNESCO World Heritage Site during these years as well as a Ramsar Site.

Buthrotum (called Butrint by the Albanians) may yet provide a model of how local communities in developing countries can be empowered through the sustainable exploitation of cultural heritage. The Park Directorate ensured that the Park was able to establish an international position. In 2005 the Butrint National Park in collaboration with the Butrint Foundation and Leventis Foundation reopened the Museum which had been destroyed in 1997. The Butrint National Park has become an important educational resource. Annually at Buthrotum there are the Albanian-American Anthropology Summer School under the leadership of Prof. Tom Crist and John Johnsen from Utica College and Prof and Neritan Ceka from the Albanian side; a field school for Albanian University Students run as a collaboration with the Butrint Foundation, directed by Ilir Gjipali of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology and The Butrint Foundation and the annual Theatre Festival which is held every summer in the ancient city.

[edit] Directions

Buthrotum is accessible from Saranda, along a road built in 1959 for a visit by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It is increasingly becoming a popular tourist attracting day-trippers from the nearby Greek holiday island of Corfu. Hydrofoils (30 minutes) and ferries (90 minutes) run daily between the New Port in Corfu Town and Saranda. A regular public bus service runs between Saranda port and Butrint.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Butrint

[edit] Further reading

Ceka N. - Butrint: A guide to the city and its monuments (Migjeni Books, Tirana 2005)
Crowson A. - Butrint from the Air ("Current World Archaeology" magazine 14 2006)
Hodges R. Bowden W. and Lako K. - Byzantine Butrint: Excavations and Surveys 1994-99 (Oxbow Books, Oxford 2004)
Jarrett A. Lobell - Ages of Albania (Archeology magazine March/April 2006)
Ugolini L. M - Butrinto il Mito D'Enea, gli Scavi (Istituto Grefico Tiberino, Rome 1937, Reprinted Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Tirana 1999)