A ‘god-guarded’ city? The ‘new’ medieval town of Butrint

Abstract

For Charles K. Williams

This essay describes the archaeology of the revival in the later tenth- to eleventh-century of the town of Butrint, ancient Buthrotum in south-west Albania. Based on the extensive excavations by the Butrint Foundation, all the elements (fortifications, town-planning, roads, property boundaries, dwellings, churches, wells) of a new urban centre are considered, as is its economy and its wider historical context in the southern Adriatic Sea.

Notes

1 E. Ivison, ‘Urban renewal and imperial revival in Byzantium (730–1025)’, BF 26 (2000) 1‒46 at 24‒25.

2 See, for a review, principally W. Brandes, ‘Byzantine towns in the seventh and eighth centuries – different sources, different histories’, in G. P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins (eds), The idea and ideal of the town between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (Leiden 1999) 25‒57; J. Haldon, ‘The idea of the town in the Byzantine empire’, in G. P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins (eds), The Idea and Ideal of the Town Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden 1999) 25‒58; E. Ivison, ‘Urban renewal’, 1‒46; E. Ivison, ‘Amorium in the Byzantine Dark Ages (seventh to ninth centuries)’, in J. Henning (ed.), Post-Roman Towns, Trade and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, II: Byzantium, Pliska, and the Balkans (Berlin 2007) 25‒59. For the Balkans see: A. Dunn, ‘Stages in the transition from the Late Antique to the Middle Byzantine urban centre in S. Macedonia and S. Thrace’, Aphieroma ston N.G.L.Hammond, Etaireia Makedonikon Spoudon [Society for Macedonian Studies], (Thessalonike 1997) 137‒52.

3 M. Veikou, ‘“Rural towns” and “in-between” or “third spaces”. Settlement patterns in Byzantine Epirus (7th‒11th centuries) from an interdisciplinary approach’, Archeologia Medievale 36 (2009) 51‒62; M. Veikou, Byzantine Epirus. A topography of transformation. Settlements of the Seventh-Twelfth Centuries in southern Epirus and Aetoloacarnania, Greece (Leiden 2012) 273‒303.

4 E.g. Ivison, ‘Urban renewal’, 1‒46.

5 See, for example, D. Skre, ‘Post-substantivist towns and trade AD 600-1000', in D. Skre (ed.), Means of Exchange. Dealing with Silver in the Viking Age (Aarhus 2008) 327‒41.

6 For an illustrated overview: R. Hodges, The Rise and Fall of Byzantine Butrint (London 2008).

7 See W. Bowden and R. Hodges, ‘An “Ice Age settling on the Roman Empire”: post-Roman Butrint between strategy and serendipity’, in A. Augenti, N. Christie, and A. Augenti (eds), Urbes Extinctae (Aldershot 2012) 207‒41; S. Greenslade and R. Hodges ‘The aristocratic ‘oikos’ on the Vrina Plain, Butrint', BMGS (37) 1‒19.

8 D. R. Hernandez and Dh. Çondi, ‘Preliminary report on the Roman forum excavations at Butrint (Buthrotum): the archaeology of a Hellenistic and Roman port in Epirus’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 21 (2008) 275‒92; see also D. R. Hernandez, ‘The refuse of urban history. Excavating the Roman Forum at Butrint’, Expedition 53 (2011) 36‒43.

9 A. Wilson, ‘The aqueduct of Butrint’ in I. L. Hansen, R. Hodges and S. Leppard (eds), The Archaeology and Histories of an Ionian Town (Oxford 2012) 77‒96 (hereafter, Hansen et al., (eds), An Ionian Town); S. Leppard, ‘The Roman bridge at Butrint’, in I. L. Hansen et al. (eds), An Ionian Town, 97‒104.

10 S. Greenslade, ‘The Vrina Plain settlement between the 1st‒13th centuries AD’, in Hansen et al. (eds), An Ionian Town, 123‒64.

11 See D. Bescoby, ‘Landscape and environmental change: new perspectives’, in Hansen et al. (eds) An Ionian town, 22‒30; see also, S. Pavlides, and R. Caputo, ‘Magnitude versus faults’ surface parameters: quantitative relationships from the Aegean region', Tectonophysics 380 (2004) 159‒88; P.A. Pirazzoli, J. Laborel, and S.C. Stiros, ‘Earthquake clustering in the eastern Mediterranean during historical times’, Journal of Geophysical research – Solid Earth 101 (1996) 6083‒97.

12 For an overview: R. Hodges, W. Bowden and A. Sebastiani, ‘La transizione urbana a Butrinto nel V secolo: ricerche recenti e nuove questioni’, in P. Delogu and S. Gasparri (eds), Le trasformazioni del V secolo. L'Italia, I barbari e l'Occidente romano, (Turnhout 2010) 371‒99.

13 A. Lane, et al., ‘The environs of Butrint 1: the 1995‒96 environmental survey', in R. Hodges, W. Bowden and K. Lako (eds), Byzantine Butrint: Excavations and Survey 1994–1999 (Oxford 2004) 27‒46 (hereafter, Hodges et al. (eds), Byzantine Butrint); D. Bescoby, J. Barclay, and J. Andrews, ‘Saints and sinners: a tephrochronology for Late Antique landscape change in Epirus from the eruptive history of Lipari, Aeolian Islands’, Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (9) (2008) 2574‒79.

14 P. Soustal, ‘The historical sources for Butrint in the Middle Ages’, in R. Hodges et al. (eds), Byzantine Butrint, 20‒26 at 22.

15 See Bescoby, ‘Landscape and environmental change’.

16 Ibid.

17 Bescoby, ‘Landscape and environmental change’. See also M. R. Besonen, G. Rapp and Z. Jing, ‘The Lower Acheron River Valley’, in J. Wiseman and K. Zachos (eds), Landscape Archaeology in Southern Epirus, Greece (Hesperia Supplement 32) (Princeton 2003) 199‒263 at 222, fig. 6. 14 (upper); see also Veikou, Byzantine Epirus, map 6.

18 Bescoby et al., ‘Saints and sinners’.

19 See Soustal. ‘The historical sources for Butrint’, for an overview; see, also, Veikou, Byzantine Epirus, 47.

20 E. Chrysos, ‘The Middle Byzantine Period (sixth century – 1204)', in M. B. Sakellariou (ed.), Epirus. 400 Years of Greek History and Civilization (Athens 1997) 182‒95.

21 V. Von Falkenhausen, ‘Tra Occidente e Oriente: Otranto in Epoca Bizantina’ in H. Houben (ed.) Otranto nel Medioevo tra Bisanzio e l'Occidente (Galantina 2007) 13‒60 at 35; V. Von Falkenhausen, ‘Between two empires: Byzantine Italy in the reign of Basil II', in P. Magdalino, (ed.), Byzantium in the year 1000 (Leiden 2003) 135‒59.

22 Soustal, ‘The historical sources for Butrint’, 22.

23 Ibid.

24 P. Stephenson, Byzantium's Balkan Frontier. A political study of the northern Balkans 900-1204 (Cambridge 2000) 162‒63.

25 Soustal, ‘The historical sources for Butrint', 22‒23.

26 Ibid., 23.

27 For a discussion of mobile early medieval settlement, see H. Hamerow, ‘Agrarian production and the emporia of mid Saxon England, ca. AD 650‒850’, in J. Henning (ed.) Post-Roman towns, trade and settlement in Europe and Byzantium. Vol. 1.The heirs of the Roman West (Berlin 2007) 219‒32.

28 See R. Hodges, The Rise and Fall of Byzantine Butrint; R. Hodges, S. Kamani, M. Logue, and J. Vroom, ‘The sack of Butrint, c. AD 800’, Antiquity 83 (2009) http/:www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/hodges; S. Kamani, ‘Butrint in the mid-Byzantine period: a new interpretation’, BMGS 35/2 (2011) 115‒33. S. Greenslade and R. Hodges, ‘The aristocratic ‘oikos’ on the Vrina Plain’.

29 W. Bowden, A. Culwick, K. Francis, O. Gilkes, K. Lako and J. Price, ‘The medieval occupation of the Triconch area', in W. Bowden and R. Hodges, Butrint 3: Excavations at the Triconch Palace (Oxford 2011) 119‒32.

30 J. Vroom, ‘From one coast to another: early medieval ceramics in the southern Adriatic region', in S.Gelichi and R. Hodges (eds), From One sea to Another: Trading Centres in the European and Mediterranean Early Middle Ages (Turnhout 2012) 353‒92.

31 W. Bowden, A. Crowson, M. Logue and A. Sebastiani, ‘The medieval occupation of the Merchant's House', in W. Bowden and R. Hodges, Butrint 3. Excavations at the Triconch Palace, (Oxford 2011) 202‒8; cf. G. Sanders, ‘Recent developments in the chronology of Byzantine Corinth', in C. K. Williams and N. Bookidis (eds), Corinth: The Centenary 1896–1996 (Princeton 2003) 385‒400.

32 T. Pestell and K. Ulmschneider (eds), Markets in Early Medieval Europe. Trading and ‘Productive’ Sites, 650–850 (Bollington 2003); C. Loveluck and D. Tys, 'Coastal societies, exchange and identity along the Channel and southern North Sea shores of Europe, AD 600-100', Journal of Maritime Archaeology 1 (2006) 140‒69; Skre, op. cit., 337‒8; R. Hodges, Dark Age Economics: A New Audit (London 2012) 29‒31.

33 Skre, ‘Post-substantivist towns and trade AD 600-1000’, 337.

34 Ibid., 338.

35 David Hernandez has excavated a line of probable new eleventh-century buildings on a terrace above the east end of the Roman Forum in 2013. The date of these has yet to be confirmed. See R. Hodges, ‘Butrint. Finding a timeless oasis’, Current World Archaeology 61 (2013) 46‒51 at 50.

36 R. Hodges, ‘From Roman insula to medieval quarter', in W. Bowden and R. Hodges, Butrint 3. Excavations at the Triconch Palace (Oxford 2011) 319‒26.

37 P. Papadopoulou, ‘The numismatic evidence from Southern Adriatic (5th–11th centuries): some preliminary observations and thoughts’, in S. Gelichi and R. Hodges (eds), From One Sea to Another, 297‒320.

38 R. Hodges, From Roman insula to medieval quarter, 322.

39 Ibid., 321.

40 Ibid., 321; fig. 10.2.

41 Ibid., fig. 10.2.

42 Ibid., 322.

43 Bowden et al., The medieval occupation of the Merchant's House, 205.

44 Phoinike, a powerfully fortified hill city in Hellenistic and Roman times nearby, abandoned since late antiquity, may have been re-occupied at this time, judging from a significant coin hoard dating to the 960s found in the principal church. Unlike Butrint, however, Phoinike did not become a medieval town. See M. Podini, A. Meta and L. Mancini, ‘L'area del tempio in antis e la basilica paleocristiana’, in S. De Maria and S. Gjongecaj (eds) Phoinike V (Bologna 2011) 27.

45 R. Andrews, W. Bowden, O. Gilkes, and S. Martin, ‘The late antique and medieval fortifications of Butrint’, in R. Hodges et al. (eds), Byzantine Butrint, 137; N. Molla, F. Paris, and F. Venturini, ‘Material boundaries: the city walls at Butrint’, in Hansen, Hodges. and Leppard (eds) Butrint 4, 258‒77.

46 Forum excavations, made in 2005‒6, context 144.

47 Leppard, ‘The Roman bridge at Butrint’.

48 Molla et al., ‘Material boundaries: the city walls at Butrint’; Andrews et al., ‘The late antique and medieval fortifications of Butrint’, fig. 8.8.

49 For a brief description see B. Papadopoulou, ‘Fortifications of Rogoi, Greece’, in S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphones (eds) Secular and Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300-1500, and its Preservation (Thessalonike 1997) 102‒3. See also M. Veikou, Byzantine Epirus, 476‒78.

50 E. Giorgi and J. Bogdani, Il Territorio di Phoinike in Caonia. Archeologia del Paesaggio in Albania Meridionale (Scavi di Phoinike serie monografica I) (Bologna 2012) 235‒7, figs 4 and 5.

51 Hernandez and Çondi, ‘Preliminary report on the Roman forum excavations at Butrint (Buthrotum)’.

52 Unpublished excavations of the well-head by S. Islami in 1982 show that there was a makeshift Medieval phase (I am grateful to David Hernandez for a photograph of the excavation in progress from the Institute of Archaeology, Tirana, which he showed me.); cf. Hernandez and Çondi, ‘Preliminary report on the Roman forum excavations at Butrint (Buthrotum)', fig. 8.

53 Hernandez and Çondi, op. cit. (wall 141; the coin is small find 0586).

54 O.J. Gilkes (ed.), The Theatre at Butrint. Luigi Maria Ugolini's Excavations at Butrint 1928-1932 (Albania antica IV) (London 2003) 78.

55 See N. Ceka, ‘Recent excavations in Butrint (2004-5): notes on the growth of the ancient city centre’, in L. Bejko and R. Hodges (eds), New Directions in Albanian Archaeology (Tirana 2006) 177‒85 at 185.

56 S. Greenslade, S. Leppard and M. Logue, ‘The acropolis of Butrint reassessed', in I. L. Hansen, R. Hodges and S. Leppard (eds), The Archaeology and Histories of an Ionian Town (Oxford 2012) 47‒76.

57 Cf. P. Arthur, Byzantine and Turkish Hierapolis. An archaeological guide (Istanbul 2006) 47; fig. 12; C. Lightfoot and M. Lightfoot, Amorium. An archaeological guide (Istanbul 2007) 119‒20.

58 W. Bowden and J. Mitchell, ‘The Christian topography of Butrint', in R. Hodges et al. (eds), Byzantine Butrint, 104‒11; fig.7.8; N. Molla, ‘The Great Basilica of Butrint. Archaeological survey and architectural analysis of a religious building', in Hansen et al. (eds), An Ionian Town (Oxford 2012) 200‒12.

59 On the Early Byzantine decoration of the well see Bowden and Mitchell, ‘The Christian topography of Butrint', 118; on the excavations of the Middle Byzantine chapel and cemetery beside the well, see A. Sebastiani et al., ‘The medieval church and cemetery at the Well of Junia Rufina', in Hansen et al. (eds), An Ionian Town, 213‒42.

60 Bowden and Mitchell, ‘The Christian topography of Butrint’, 114‒18.

61 W. Bowden and L. Përzhita, ‘The baptistery’, in Hodges et al. (eds), Byzantine Butrint, 193‒95.

62 J. Mitchell, S. Greenslade, R. Hodges and S. Leppard, ‘Preliminary report on the early Christian basilica on the Vrina Plain, Albania’, Archeologia Medievale 32 (2006) 406; Greenslade, ‘The Vrina Plain settlement between the 1st and 12th centuries’; Greenslade and Hodges, ‘The aristocratic ‘oikos’ on the Vrina Plain’.

63 For churches in Middle Byzantine Kastoria see S. Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans. From Diocletian to Süleyman the Magnificent, (London 2010) 313‒315, figs 331‒33; for Epirote churches see Veikou, Byzantine Epirus, 57‒68.

64 For the line of stone buildings found in David Hernandez's excavations above the Roman Forum in 2013, see Hodges, ‘Butrint. Finding a timeless oasis’, 50.

65 Bowden et al., ‘The medieval occupation of the triconch area’, 123‒29; Bowden et al., ‘The medieval occupation of the Merchant's House’, 208‒12.

66 See W. Bowden and J. Mitchell, ‘The Triconch Palace at Butrint: the life and death of a late Roman domus’, in L. Lavan, L. Özgenel and A. Sarantis (eds), Housing in Late Antiquity (Leiden 2007) 455‒574.

67 See, for example, P. Arthur, ‘From vicus to village: Italian landscapes, c. AD 400-1000’, in N. Christie (ed.), landscapes of Change. Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Aldershot 2004) 103‒34 ; P. Galetti, Uomini e Case nel Medioevo tra Occidente e Oriente (Rome 2001) ; R. Santangeli Valenziani, Edilizia residenziale in Italia nell'altomedioevo (Rome 2011); M. Valenti, L'Insediamento Altomedievale nelle Campagne Toscane. Paesaggi. Popolamento e Villaggi tra VI e X secolo (Florence 2004).

68 L. Sigalos, ‘Middle and Late Byzantine houses in Greece (tenth to fifteenth centuries)’, in Ken Dark (ed.), Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford 2004) 53‒81; see also: idem. Housing in Medieval and Post-Medieval Greece (Oxford 2004).

69 P. Arthur, Byzantine and Turkish Hierapolis, 136‒7; fig.69.

70 Greenslade and Hodges, ‘An aristocratic ‘oikos’ on the Vrina Plain’.

71 Pescara: A. Staffa, ‘I centre urbani dell'Abruzzo adriatico fra tarda antichità ed altomedioevo’, in A. Augenti (ed.), Le Città italiane tra la tarda antichità e l'alto medioevo (Florence 2006) 345‒476; Ravenna: A. Augenti, E. Cirelli and D. Marin, ‘Case e Magazzini a Classe fra VII e VIII secolo', in G. Volpe and P. Favia (eds), Atti del V Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Nazionale (Florence 2009) 138‒44 at 141‒43; Stari Bar: S. Gelichi, A Town through the Ages. The 2006-2007 archaeological project in Stari Bar (Florence 2008) 17.

72 L. M. Ugolini, Butrinto. Il mito d'Enea, gli scavi (Rome1937) 21; fig. 7.

73 Sigalos, ‘Middle and Late Byzantine houses’.

74 Amorium: see Ivison, ‘Amorium in the Byzantine Dark Ages’; Hierapolis: Arthur, Byzantine and Turkish Hierapolis, 111‒14; 131‒34; Pergamum: H. Buchwald, ‘Byzantine town planning – does it exist?’, in M. Grünbart, E. Kislinger, A. Muthesias and D. Stathakopoulos (eds), Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400-1453) (Vienna 2007) 57‒74 at 68‒9; Bari: P. Skinner, ‘Room for tension: urban life in Apulia in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, Papers of the British School at Rome LXVI (1998) 159‒76; Naples: P. Skinner, ‘Urban communities in Naples, AD 900-1050', Papers of the British School at Rome LXII (1994) 279‒300; Ravenna: A. Augenti, ‘A tale of two cities. Rome and Ravenna between 7th and 9th century AD', in S. Gasparri (ed.), 774. Ipotesi su una transizione (Turnhout 2008) 175‒98 at 183‒92.

75 See C. Pennas, Byzantine Aigina (Athens 2005) 14‒17 (I owe this reference to Sarah Morris).

76 Greenslade, Leppard and Logue, ‘The acropolis of Butrint reassessed’.

77 Greenslade, ‘The Vrina Plain settlement between the 1st and 13th centuries'.

78 O. Gilkes and V. Hysa, ‘In the shadow of Butrint’, Expedition 53 (3) (2011) 34‒35.

79 Unpublished field survey by Alessandro Sebastiani and Emanuele Vaccaro for the Butrint Foundation, November 2008, 6, 87. The sherds were discovered at site 69 within the modern village of Mursi and comprised Otranto amphora and local pottery.

80 G. Karaiskaj, The Fortifications of Butrint (London 2009) 45.

81 Soustal, ‘The historical sources for Butrint’, 25.

82 Ibid., 25

83 M. Meshini, and A. Male, ‘Strukturat e reja – Muri antic', Raport Vjetor 2010/Annual Report (Tirana 2011) 126‒7.

84 See, however, A. Bace, ‘Fortifikimet e antiketit të vonë ne vendin tone', Monumentet 11 (1976) 53‒54; W. Bowden, Epirus Vetus: The Archaeology of a Late Antique Province (London 2003) 96.

85 R. Hodges, ‘Butrint's northern frontier in the 11^th century? The Dema Wall’, Annual of the British School at Athens 108 (2014) 1‒5.

86 D. Mylona, ‘Fish’ in A. Powell, ‘The Faunal Remains’, in R. Hodges et al. (eds) Byzantine Butrint, 319.

87 C. Claasen, Shells (Cambridge 1998) 176‒78.

88 R. Veropoulidou and S. Kamani, ‘The archaeomalacological remains of the Western Defences (Butrint, Albania) from the 8th to the 11th centuries AD: from domestic consumption to large-scale processing of mussels' Journal of Archaeological Science (forthcoming).

89 Bowden and Hodges, ‘An “Ice Age settling on the Roman Empire”’.

90 P. Horden, and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford 2000) 22.

91 Horden and Purcell, The Corrupting Sea, 153‒72.

92 Soustal, ‘The historical sources for Butrint’, 23.

93 Ibid., 23.

94 Loveluck and Tys, ‘Coastal society, exchange and identity’, 146.

95 S.M. Sindbæk, ‘The small world of the Vikings: networks in early medieval communication and exchange’, Norwegian Archaeological Review 40 (2007) 59‒74.

96 Hodges, Dark Age Economics. A New Audit, 23‒25.