Butrint city is large and complex, with ruins from many different periods, and for the non-archaeologist
or non-specialist student of the site , the easiest route on a first visit is to keep as close as possible to
the perimeter. Walk around the walls and see the way town and fortress developed as an island stronghold , and than
to proceed towards the centre to see the finest of the ancient buildings.
Enter the site through a gate ,where
a small charge is sometimes payable. Turning right from the entrance gate , you follow the perimeter path past the ruins of a Roman bath and a Venetian
tower , then a section of wall dating from the 4C AD.
After about another 400m, you come to the remains of an early Christian cult centre , and then a bath formed in the
shape of a cross, which may have been part of a medieval church.
On the right there is a very fine view over the broadening
channel leading back to the lake. You next follow a long section of outer wall , also from late antiquity, then walk through
wooded glades towards the north end of the island.
On the left, as the end of the path is approached, there are walls from a medieval chapel ,
near the point where interconnecting walls of the outer fortifications join. The inner wall dates from the 3C BC.
[Early Christian Baptistry
]
[Butrint City Walls
]
Turning left and following the path by the most northely point of the
island, much older Illyrian walls begin, dating from the 4C and 5C BC,
built of Cyclopean-scale blocs.
The original walls are thought to have been about 9m high here.
On the right, there are very beautiful views across the lake, with a rich variety of birdlife.
The area used to be famous for hunting, particulary of snipe ,
and butrint is occasionally mentioned in 19C British sportmen´s
memoirs in this context. Hunters based in Corfu used to make day trips for shooting in the
Butrint marshes.
This path leads to the south-west, around the edge of the island, from a tower. After a couple of minutes´
walk, you will find a gatehouse in the walls and an ancient warehouse, later used as an early Christian burial place.
Below the gatehouse is a well brides used to draw lustral water, the Well of Nymphs.
A Greek inscription indicating the use of the well can be seen on the wall. It reads:
´Junia Rufina, friends of nymphs´.
Several different phases of construction of the well have been isolated, the earliest in the 4C BC. It assumed its final form in the 1C BC, when it was covered with a domed roof
and decorated with paintings, one showing two peacocks and a parrot.
[Various buildings in the city
]
[Entrance tower of the city
]
The nearby gate entrance has a finely carved stone lintel showing a lion devouring an ox. The size and strength of the Illyrian masonry at the lower levels is comparable
in the impression created at the great Mycenaean sites of Greece, such as Tiryns and Mycenae.
Unusually, towers do not play much part in the Illyrian defences
of the city. Although the perimeter walk can be continued here to return to the entrance gate, this is a convenient point to enter the inner fortress.
Across from the trees and scrub is the base of
the acropolis, with the oldest fortification walls, dating from the 6C BC.
This end of the acropolis is accessible, with an early Christian church in the centre, among the trees
. It is the oldest Christian building in Butrint .
In design it appears to be similar to other churches in Albania
found at Elbasan, Phoinike and Byllis, with an arched roof and mosaic floors. It dates from the firsts
half of the 4C.
In the medieval period it was rebuilt, with the addition of a small chapel on the south side.
The far end of the acropolis, where Venetian and Turkish cannon remain in position on the walls, is laid out as gardens around the central fort.
[Floor mosaics at Basilica
]
[LIVIA, wife of Emperor Augustus
]
Cross the acropolis and climb down towards the central complex of ancient buildings and join the central path through
them. They are enclosed within the perimeter wall dating from the 3C BC.
From the path, walking westwards towards the site
entrance, you will find the remains of a large Roman house, dating from the 2C AD
.
Its centre was an open courtyard paved with flagstones, around which 12 stone columns rose from a plinth. Next
to the stoa is a finely preserved Roman theatre, rising against the rocky
outcrop of the acropolis.
The 22 rows of seats would have accommodated about 2000 people. The audience reached the seats by means
of six radiating flights of steps.
The steep incline forced the builders to support the sides of
the seating with transverse walls, supported by two lateral walls, giving the theatre a quadrangular form unusual at the time.
Entry to the building was made by a corridor on each side. At the beginning of the 2C the orchestra
pit and the stage were reconstructed. A number of statues were found in Butrint during excavations.
[Emperor Augustus Butrint's Museum
]
Some of statues that were found are , two animal statues, a head of Agrippa,
Augustus´s general, and most important of all, the finest Classical statue
found in Albania, the so-called ´Goddes of Butrint´, now exhibited in Tirana in the National
Historical Museum.
They stood in six marble niches. Above the theatre was a 2C BC temple which was built
simultaneously with the theatre and integrated into its foundations. Inside there is a foundation where the altar stood, and a stylobate in the east corner.
In the 1C BC the floor was covered with a black and white mosaic made in geometrical patterns.
