1 Introduction
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 Introduction William Bowden and Richard Hodges [A]mong the fundamental problems of Byzantine history it would be hard to name one that has been studied less than has that of the cities. (Ostrogovsky 1959, 47) When Ostrogovsky wrote these words, the cities of the Butrint, but in this case involved uncovering almost all the post-Roman Mediterranean were little understood. Over so-called Triconch Palace and part of an adjacent building, the following decades, however, the late antique city has which we called the Merchant’s House.1 This sector of become the subject of an ongoing academic debate and the Butrint lies midway along the Vivari Channel, and it was study of Roman and post-Roman urbanism has effectively clearly a locus of activity long before, and long after, the become an academic sub-discipline, generating a huge body construction of the 5th-century Triconch Palace. Indeed, the of literature within the wider field of late antique studies present volume describes the sequence of occupation here (e.g. Brogiolo, Gauthier and Christie 2000; Brogiolo and from the 2nd century or earlier until the 16th century and Ward Perkins 1999; Carver 1993; Christie and Loseby later. This sequence encompasses a succession of Roman 1996; Lavan 2001; Liebeschuetz 2001; Popovič 1984; residential buildings that last in one form or another until Rich 1992). the desertion of the Roman town in the early 7th century. The Butrint Foundation’s programme has focused It also encompasses the reoccupation of the area, first on Butrint in southern Albania, hitherto a little-known intermittently in Middle Byzantine times, then intensively ancient and medieval port in a Mediterranean context. for a brief spell in the 10th to 12th centuries, before the Given the opportunity to survey and excavate not only channel-side plots were turned over to allotments and the in several key areas within the deserted town, but also occasional location of fishing activities prior to the making within its lagoonal micro-region, since 1994 we have been of the woodland park today. The archaeology of this area developing a new paradigm for the nature of an Adriatic then, represents a distinctive section of the ancient city, Sea port between the Hellenistic and Ottoman ages (cf. different in character from the more familiar public centre Hodges 2006). As outlined in the introduction to Byzantine around the theatre, different, too, from the hillslopes of the Butrint (Hodges et al. 2004), the first volume dealing with acropolis, or indeed, the acropolis itself. In many ways, the results of the Butrint Project, the ongoing debate on the excavations reveal the rhythms of Butrint as a small urban transformation formed the academic background but enduring port close to the meeting of the Adriatic and to the Butrint Project, which is in its fifteenth year at the Ionian Seas and chart its changing maritime connections. time of writing. Unsurprisingly over this long duration This report does not describe the changing topography the debate has changed and fluctuated, while at the same of the port in Roman and post-Roman times. This will only time the project itself has developed and responded to the be possible once the full reports on other excavations in the changing circumstances of post-communist Albania. The forum, in the suburb on the Vrina Plain, and the maritime Butrint Project in 2011 is responding to questions that villa at Diaporit, for example, have been completed. have developed out of the research at the site over the Nevertheless, we offer a further opportunity (enlarging last 17 years, yet also has to be understood in the context upon our earlier observations – see Bowden 2003; Hansen of the changing nature of the wider debate on Roman and 2009; Hodges 2006; Hodges 2008; Hodges, Bowden and medieval urbanism. Lako 2004) to examine how an important sector in this This volume describes the excavations of a large urban town evolved, and how this history begins to throw new sector of Butrint. The excavations followed small scale light on our understanding of urbanism in the Adriatic and excavations made by earlier archaeological missions to Ionian Seas. 2 William Bowden and Richard Hodges Phoenicê Saranda ALBANIA CORFU Butrint GREECE 0 10km Lake Butrint Diaporit Butrint National Butrint Park boundary Vrina Xarre Mursia Malathrea Çiflik Çuka e Aitoit 0 5km Figure 1.1. Butrint in relation to its surrounding region The site of Butrint along which runs the present frontier between Albania and Butrint sits at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Greece. Immediately east of Lake Butrint, a range of hills commanding the sea-routes up the Adriatic Sea to the north, and low mountains rise up to 824 m, effectively creating across the Mediterranean to the west, and south through a basin around the ancient city and the inland lake. the Ionian islands. Like ancient Dyrrhachium (modern The walled city, inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage Durrës) to the north it also controlled a land-route into the Site in 1992, covers an area of c. 16 hectares (Fig 1.2), mountainous interior. The abandoned ancient and medieval but geophysical survey on the eastern side of the Vivari port is located 3 km inland from the Straits of Corfu in Channel shows that at times in antiquity Butrint covered south Albania (Fig. 1.1). For much of its long history the as much as 30 hectares (see Bescoby 2007) (Fig. 1.3). The settlement was confined to a hill on a bend in the Vivari walled city comprises two parts: the acropolis and the lower Channel, which connects the Straits to the large inland city. The acropolis is a long narrow hill, approximately lagoon of Lake Butrint. A narrow plain, formerly a marsh, 200 m long and 60 m at its widest, that rises up to 42 m separates the channel from a band of hills to the south, above sea level at its east end; its sides are accentuated 1. Introduction 3 Figure 1.2. The walled city of Butrint, with the Triconch Palace in the immediate foreground by a circuit of walls that separate it from the natural and artificial terraces gathered around the flanks of the hill. A brief overview of the excavations The lower city occupies the lower-lying contours down The Triconch Palace lies of the south side of the city close to to the edge of the Vivari Channel. Remains of a cemetery the Vivari Channel that connects Lake Butrint to the Straits are recorded on the spine of the hill running west from the of Corfu. The excavated area encompassed the area of the acropolis (Budina 1988; Ugolini 1937, 174), but its extent late antique domus together with an area to the west that is unknown. The most obvious monument outside the city appeared to have a different, possibly commercial, function walls, on the opposite side of the channel, is the Triangular (Fig. 1.4). It became clear that the area represented three Castle, which after 1572 became the nucleus of the early separate building plots and something of the relationship modern settlement (Karaiskaj 1980, 33–35; Karaiskaj 2009, between these plots (and perhaps their owners) could be 95–105; Leake 1835, 95). Beyond the fortress to the east, discerned through the excavation (Bowden, Hodges, and opposite the walled site, there are substantial remains of Lako 2002). Of equal importance was the relationship Roman to Byzantine date. These formed part of the Roman between the buildings and the Vivari Channel and the and late antique town. way in which those relationships were changed by the The so-called Triconch Palace at Butrint was first noted construction of the late antique city wall, which was dated in the 1920s, when the Italian Archaeological Mission to by the excavations to the first half of the 6th century. Butrint interpreted a tri-apsidal building as “una chiesa The earliest origins of channel-side occupation in the bizantina”. The interpretation of the building as a martyrium Triconch Palace area could not be determined. However, as church was followed subsequently until 1994 when it the Roman colony of Buthrotum prospered, expanding out was recognised as the triclinium of a palatial late Roman from its Hellenistic nucleus at the foot of the acropolis hill, domus. From 1994 until 2003, the Triconch Palace and its a modest town house occupied the plot beside the Vivari surroundings were the subject of extensive excavations Channel. The earliest known structures date to the 2nd revealing a rich late antique and medieval occupation century AD. By the end of the 4th century this was enlarged sequence.2 The intention of these excavations was to into a major house – a domus – with a small peristyle. This understand how a major residence developed during the relatively small but affluent property provided the starting Roman period and to understand what happened to it in the point for making a much more ambitious dwelling here post-Roman period. It was intended that these excavations at the start of the 5th century. By occupying the adjacent would inform the ongoing debates on the nature of late properties, the architect was able to enlarge the peristyle, Roman aristocratic housing (discussed further in Chapter create an impressive marine doorway, and add a triconch 8) and provide an insight into the changing social and dining room of substantial proportions. But the palace economic fortunes of Butrint itself between the Roman was never completed. Instead, its rooms were occupied and medieval periods. by several small structures. Notwithstanding the enclosure of the area behind a town fortification in the first half of 4 Lake Gate Lion Gate Well of Junia Rufina North Mausoleum Gate Acropolis Basilica Great Basilica West Gate Tower Bowden William and Richard Hodges Castle Gate Bridge Theatre Forum Baptistery Gymnasium Monument Temple Triconch Palace mausoleum Western Defences Merchant's House Vrina Plain Venetian Tower settlement Triangular Castle 0 200m Figure 1.3 Butrint, showing all extant monuments 1.