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 , 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 , 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.  William Bowden and Richard Hodges

Phoenicê

Saranda

ALBANIA

CORFU Butrint

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 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 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 

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  William Bowden and Richard Hodges m Mausoleu m 0 200m Temple mausoleu t t Monumen settlemen Vrina Plain Bridge y Great r Basilica Gate Baptister Towe Lake Gate Figure Figure 1.3 Butrint, showing all extant monuments Triconch Palace m Gymnasiu e Forum Well of Merchant's Hous Acropolis Basilica Lion Gate Junia Rufina r we To e netian Castle Ve h Theatr Gate Nort Western Defences Castle West Gate Triangular 1. Introduction 

Plot 1 Plot 2 Plot 3

Merchant's House

Triconch Palace

0 20m

Figure 1.4. The excavated area of the Triconch Palace and the Merchant’s House with possible property boundaries marked

the 6th century, these small dwellings and their successors the building actually ceased at about this time, but in the were used intermittently until the mid to late 6th century, ground separating it from the city wall and channel, there with their occupants able to access a range of goods from was evidence of occupation until the later 6th century. across the central and eastern Mediterranean. Thereafter, this channel-side area was partially covered in Major change came by the mid 7th century when the crushed mussel shells, indicating fishing activity, probably area was abandoned, and thereafter this area was seldom throughout the Middle Byzantine period. A cobbled surface occupied in any permanent form. The rising water table, or road, and a number of buildings of varying construction, we surmise, may have made parts of it uninhabitable in the suggest a short-lived bid to reoccupy this area in the 11th winter months. From the 10th to 12th centuries, however, century, as occurred in the adjacent Triconch Palace area. the walled town became the focus of renewed activity, Thereafter, following the closure of the gate to the channel evidenced by deposition of significant quantities of material in the 13th century and the construction of a tower at the in the former courtyard area of the Triconch Palace. This start of the 14th century, like the Triconch Palace area, this was seemingly the context for new construction – at least ground was maintained primarily as gardens or agricultural one post-built dwelling that later was re-fashioned in stone land for nearby properties whose presence is evidenced by was discovered here. Yet within a century or so, occupation quantities of 13th- to 15th-century ceramics. of the area once again diminished. From the 13th century onwards, this section of the medieval town was maintained, we surmise, principally for its gardens and in all probability Methodology and this report fishing activities. The first phase of the Triconch Palace excavations took The adjacent area to the west of the Triconch Palace place over four seasons between 1994 and 1999. Owing contained a substantial but smaller later Roman building, to the logistical difficulties of working in Albania during the so-called Merchant’s House (although any commercial this period, this work was mainly an assessment exercise use remains ambiguous). It was not possible to excavate that involved sampling the archaeological assemblage in this complex fully, but one part had a lower floor decorated different parts of the site. Although relatively limited in scale with fragments of marble veneer. At the end of the 5th this work succeeded in both producing major excavated century it was incorporated into the structure of the new assemblages and defining the basis of the occupation city wall, which nonetheless allowed the owners of the sequence at the site. These excavations are described in some property to maintain their access to the channel, which detail in Gilkes and Lako 2004, although some elements was facilitated by a small gate in the wall. Occupation of will be repeated here in the context of this final report.  William Bowden and Richard Hodges

Figure 1.5. The Triconch Palace excavations in progress during the last season of excavation in 2003

From 2000–2003 major open area excavations were clearly buried by later deposits, although in some cases carried out, focused on the southern and eastern parts they may have only stood to just above foundation level. of the site (Fig. 1.5). These succeeded in clarifying and This report attempts to present the evidence in a refining the sequence provided by the 1994–99 work and way that is sufficiently comprehensive to allow readers allowed us to understand the development of the Triconch to formulate their own interpretation if they so wish. Palace as a building and the contemporaneous use of the However, the excavations of the Triconch Palace and Merchant’s House area to the west. A complex occupation the adjacent Merchant’s House area produced more than sequence dating to the period following the abandonment of 3000 individual context records and consequently a full the Triconch as a grandiose residence was also recovered, description of the archaeological sequence would be both while in the Merchant’s House area the sequence provided impractical and indigestible. This report will therefore reliable evidence for the late 5th-century construction of take the form of a narrative description of the phases of the city wall, together with evidence of a sequence of construction and occupation on the site, with descriptions structures that extended to the end of the 6th century. Both of individual contexts and relationships limited as far as the Triconch and Merchant’s House areas also produced is possible to those that are pivotal for the definition and complex sequences of intermittent occupation from the understanding of these phases. This volume is limited 10th to the 15th centuries. to descriptions and discussion of the archaeological and In consequence the eight major phases identified in structural sequences. The primary record is housed on the the 1994–99 report have been expanded to fifteen (Tables Integrated Archaeological Database system developed by 1.1 and 1.2). In an effort to render this final report more the York Archaeological Trust. Full reports on the finds readily comprehensible, phases have been limited to those will appear in subsequent volumes. that denote substantive changes in layout and function. A common problem of archaeological reports is that Smaller structural alterations have been accommodated interpretations and sequences that were tentative or within sub-phases where necessary. Although the upper ambiguous at the moment of excavation become more levels of walls often collapsed or were demolished it is unequivocal during the process of writing the results in apparent that foundations or the lower parts of walls would narrative form. At the Triconch Palace excavations, very have remained visible and were often subsequently reused. complex depositional sequences were encountered and Consequently the plans show all structures that were not although we are confident that the analysis of the site 1. Introduction 

Table 1.1. 1994–1999 phasing 1994–1999 phasing Phase 1 3rd century AD and earlier: buildings before the domus. 2 4th century: the domus. 3 Early 5th century: the Triconch Palace. 4 Mid to late 5th century: the city wall. 5 Late 5th century: later occupation. 6 Early to mid 6th century (c. 525–575): burials, demolition and rubbish tipping. 7 13th century: medieval reoccupation. 8 14th to 19th centuries: later medieval and post-medieval deposition.

Table 1.2. Revised phasing following 2000–2003 excavations

Triconch Palace Merchant’s House 1: 3rd c. and earlier (c. AD 100–250) Earliest occupation 2: 3rd to 4th c. The early domus Earliest excavated parts of Merchant’s House 3: early 5th c. (c. AD 400) The peristyle domus Continued modification 4: early 5th c. (c. AD 420) The Triconch Palace 5: early to mid 5th c. (c. AD 420–450) Post-built structures and industrial/domestic occupation. Reduced dwelling in west wing 6: mid to late 5th c. Construction of city wall; possible Extension of west wing and addition of flooding and other occupation upper storey 7: early 6th c. Reoccupation of southern wing and Construction of city wall and abandonment roof collapses in west wing and demolition of parts of complex 8: mid 6th c. (c. AD 525–550) Demolition and dumping; extensive use Mussel processing by fishermen; beginning of burials 9: mid to late 6th c. Industrial activity in some rooms Construction of two-storey building next to city wall 10: late 6th to 7th c. Demolition and burial Abandonment of two-storey building; continued mussel processing 11: mid 7th to early 10th c. Minimal occupation/activity Mussel processing 12: early 10th to late 10th c. Stone and post-built structures and Mussel processing quite intensive activity 13: early 11th to late 12th c. Continued deposition in courtyard; a) Construction of two-storey building and further post- and stone-built structures cobbled surface b) Construction of tower and new timber buildings 14: early 13th to 14th c. Renewed burial; little defined activity Repair of tower and insertion of burials; in Triconch area; quantities of material blocking of gate; agricultural activity indicating nearby activity 15: 15th c. and later No discernable activity in Triconch area Agricultural activity and dumping of refuse

is reliable and robust as a whole, it would be dishonest trained within the Butrint training excavation) and local to suggest that no ambiguities are present within the workmen. The latter were generally used only for removal interpretation presented here. Consequently, we have of vegetation and topsoil, shovelling spoil and moving attempted where possible to provide some indication of the wheelbarrows. This is obviously a departure from many degree of confidence with which elements of the sequence excavations in the Mediterranean where, through legal have been identified, together with offering alternative requirements or tradition, most excavation is carried out by explanations and possibilities where appropriate. labourers, and the detailed nature of the sequence recovered The workforce was composed primarily of experienced reflects the use of professional archaeologists accustomed excavators from UK and Ireland-based professional to working with complex stratified sequences. rescue archaeology units (who volunteered their services One final point: from the outset it was envisaged to the project), Albanian student volunteers (previously that the Triconch Palace area would be conserved and  William Bowden and Richard Hodges

presented as a ‘new’ (i.e. post-Ugolini) monument within the archaeological park at Butrint (Martin 2001). Being beside the Vivari Channel fortifications, it offers a natural midway point for an alternative trail to the path through Butrint, which begins at the Venetian Tower and ends at the Water Gate close to the Great Basilica. Richard Andrews created a design for the conservation and presentation of the Triconch Palace area in 2001. These were adopted by the Butrint National Park, and the work was completed in July 2005 under the overall direction of Daniel Renton assisted by Jerry O’Dwyer and Albana Hakani (Fig. 1.6). Agron Islami (Institute of Monuments, Tirana) aided by Elda Omari (University of Padua) was responsible for consolidating all the mosaic pavements here (Fig. 1.7).

Notes 1 The evidence for this building having a commercial function remains ambiguous. However, the name ‘Merchant’s House’ stuck from an early stage of the excavation, and as such is present throughout the primary archive. Although we are aware of the problems caused by the persuasive power of such names, we have decided to continue using it in order to avoid having to eliminate it from the primary record. Equally the use of more neutral terms such as “Plot 1 structures” risks rendering the report more indigestible than it is already. 2 For the 1994–2003 excavations see Bowden et al. 2000; Bowden, Hodges and Lako 2002; Bowden and Mitchell 2007; Hodges, Bowden and Lako 2004; Gilkes et al. 2002; Gilkes and Lako 2004; Hodges et al. 1997. For earlier work and interpretation see Anamali 1993: 470; Lako 1990; Meksi Figure 1.6. The Triconch Palace following the conservation 1988: 207–8; Ugolini 1937: 176. programme

Figure 1.7. Cleaning of the mosaics in progress prior to consolidation