I. PREVIOUS SURVEYS OF THE BUTRINT HINTERLAND

The landscape of the Butrint region is dominated by a rugged inland mountain range and a smaller, denuded coastal range of steeply inclined beds of limestones, dolomite and sandstone, and slumped flysch deposits, dissected by numerous small streams. The two ranges are separated by a large valley leading up to Konispol, up to 2 km wide and infilled by a succession of Quaternary and Holocene deposits. Lake Butrint, occupying the valley centre, is fed by a river from the north and its waters exit into the Straits of Corfu through a gap in the coastal range, flowing westwards around the limestone spur that projects inland from the Ksamil Peninsula upon which Butrint is located.

The modern alluvial plain (the Vrina Plain) extends away from Butrint to the south-east and contains the occasional outcrop of limestone, such as the fortified hilltop site of Kalivo, bordering the southern margin of Lake Butrint, and the hill on which sits the monastery of Shën Dëlli. The widespread and dynamic nature of the fluvial regime within the valley during the Pleistocene is evident from the large relic gravel terraces that form a ridge along the south-eastern edge of the valley. These largely denuded deposits stretch from Mursi towards the limestone outcrop of Kalivo. Similar fluvial deposits abut the southern flanks of the limestone outcrops upon which the modern day settlements of Shën Dëlli and Vrina are located, and it is likely that these relic outcrops form a sediment trap, their presence diverting the flow of downcutting channels. Several exposures to the north of Xarra show inclined graded bedforms, indicating a degree of tectonic uplift. It is likely that these alluvial units are broadly comparable to the Younger Fill of Vita-Finzi's Mediterranean alluvial sequence (Vita-Finzi Reference Vita-Finzi1969), although these may represent a number of discrete, temporally separate units. The soils found today upon the floodplain are rendzina-like alluvial soils, or entisols/fluvients under the American soil classification system (Lane et al. Reference Lane, Bescoby, Gilkes, O'Hara, Hodges, Bowden and Lako2004).

The recent environmental context for Butrint is fairly typical of the Mediterranean, being dominated by at least three millennia of episodic alluvial sedimentation. The result has been the formation of a distinctive coastal plain known as the Vrina Plain, and the progradation of the coastline westwards by over 2 km. About eight millennia ago, an extensive estuary extended inland along the fault-bound valleys to the north and south of Butrint. As sea-level rise slowed, accumulating sediments brought in from the mountainous Epirote catchment rising to Mount Mile and beyond began to infill the valleys, the extremities of the estuary slowly becoming cut off from the influence of the Straits of Corfu. This process probably accelerated from the Middle Bronze Age, as large areas of the territory underwent extensive vegetation clearance. Lake Butrint itself is testimony to this once extensive coastal embayment, while the coastal floodplain today bears witness to agricultural intensification during the later communist period from c.1960–90, crisscrossed with a network of irrigation and drainage channels. The once-reclaimed seaward margins of the coastal plain have now begun to revert to a wetland environment (Bescoby, Barclay and Andrews Reference Bescoby, Barclay and Andrews2008).

The degree to which this dominant regime of large-scale sedimentary deposition and floodplain growth impedes archaeological visibility has been amply demonstrated by the results of past geophysical survey of the alluvial plain adjacent to Butrint, leading to the discovery and subsequent excavation of the extensive Vrina Plain settlement. Palaeo-environmental studies at Butrint have since focused on reconstructing snapshots of this changing landscape at key moments in the town's history and on assessing the consequences of living within an often fast-changing and unpredictable environment. One of the great challenges has been sufficiently resolving temporal connections between the town and its immediate environment, since disparity in chronological resolutions prevents anything more than broad correlations being made. The establishment of a high-resolution chronology for the sedimentary sequence of the Vrina Plain has allowed cultural and environmental sequences to be tied closely together, enabling the making of a detailed landscape reconstruction, especially for the Roman period (Bescoby Reference Bescoby, Hansen, Hodges and Leppard2013).

The 1995–6 field survey of the area south and east of Butrint (Fig.1) was the first intensive survey of its kind to be carried out in Albania (Pluciennik et al. Reference Pluciennik, Lako, Përzhita, Brennan, Hodges, Bowden and Lako2004; Lafe Reference Lafe, Bejko and Hodges2006, 333). In many respects it covered the same territory in the eastern hinterland of the town that had been surveyed in terms of monuments (following drainage work) by Dhimosten Budina in the 1960s (Budina Reference Budina1971). In essence, three different areas were systematically prospected: the Vrina Plain, immediately beside the Vivari Channel, where subsequently a Roman suburb of Butrint was located; the hills to the north of the Vrina Plain bordering the southern shore of Lake Butrint and including the fortified prehistoric hilltop of Kalivo; and the promontory to the south of Butrint known as Cape Stillo or the Korafi Hills. The methodology involved teams walking across the landscape at 10 m intervals where visibility was poor, and 5 m where it was good. This limited survey provided a picture of the context of the port of Butrint.

The 1995–6 Butrint survey recognised its limitations. The absence of small scatters – background scatters – was observed. There was also a lack of obvious evidence for pre-Roman and post-Roman sites. The restricted chronology of the survey evidence suggested that there may have been Roman management of the Butrint hinterland which obscured evidence of any pre-Roman settlement. Added to this, it was recognised that the changing environmental circumstances undoubtedly determined to some degree any understanding of the pattern of settlement after the Roman period (Pluciennik et al. Reference Pluciennik, Lako, Përzhita, Brennan, Hodges, Bowden and Lako2004, 57).

Further, limited research (currently unpublished) to the west of Butrint, around Alinura Bay has added to this picture of significant Roman intervention in the landscape, but minimal pre- or post-Roman occupation (José Carvajal, pers. comm.). Most of all, the 1995–6 survey gave rise to a detailed analysis of the environmental context of Butrint and the changing form of Lake Butrint over time. In particular, the Vrina Plain altered in form considerably after seismic events in the fourth century, with the precursor of the early modern marshes taking shape in the Mid- to Late Byzantine periods (Bescoby Reference Bescoby, Hansen and Hodges2007; Bescoby, Barclay and Andrews Reference Bescoby, Barclay and Andrews2008; Bescoby Reference Bescoby, Hansen, Hodges and Leppard2013). The final phase of the Vrina Plain community coincides with the revival of Butrint as an urban community (Hodges Reference Hodges2015, 212). It appears that the water table was steadily rising, making occupation of the plain difficult after c.1200. Colluvium, perhaps created by increased pastoral activity and woodland clearance on the hills and around the plain, may be one reason for these changing environmental conditions. Similar circumstances were also found to have been occurring around the lagoon at Glyki some 100 km south of Butrint (Tartaron Reference Tartaron2004; Wiseman and Zachos Reference Wiseman and Zachos2003).

As a result of the 1995–6 field survey a more developed analysis of the possible Roman centuriation was made in the region to the east of Butrint (Figs. 1, 2). This has been described in some detail elsewhere (Bescoby Reference Bescoby, Hansen and Hodges2007; Reference Bescoby, Hansen, Hodges and Leppard2013; forthcoming). In summary, using photographs taken at about 10,000 feet by the Royal Air Force during 1943, Bescoby detected traces of two phases of Roman-period centuriation in the area between Butrint and the valley to the east of Mursi. He summarised these as:

• • Augustan-period or earlier influence detected in the form of land divisions within the valley conforming to 20 × 20 actus units aligned with a pre-existing approach road.

• • Augustan-period aqueduct and new approach road running alongside and aligning with the crossing point over the Vivari Channel into Butrint. The alignment deviates from the proposed centuriation grid. The development of the Vrina Plain suburb of Butrint from the mid-first century focused along this new road axis and the Vivari Channel crossing point. It is likely that the road bridge into Butrint (Leppard Reference Leppard, Hansen, Hodges and Leppard2013) dates to this era.

• • From the mid-third century a substantial villa occupies much of the original Vrina Plain settlement close to the bridgehead and the approach road appears to have been diverted past a large mausoleum to the north-east. It is possible that the centuriation arrangement was no longer fully functioning.

It was clear by 2008, in summary, that there is excellent evidence of major Early Roman intervention in the landscape around Butrint associated with the creation and early evolution of the Augustan colony. Before and after this pronounced Early Roman intervention, exploitation of this landscape appears to have been less systematic.

II. THE ‘MURSI SURVEY’ (FIG. 3)

The ‘Mursi survey’ followed on from the previous surveys, and was undertaken in November 2008 by two of the authors (AS and EV) with the collaboration of Dhimitër Çondi from the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana. The ground conditions were good as the vegetation cover was limited. The survey covered an irregular corridor of territory between the excavated Hellenistic and Roman villa at Diaporit (Bowden and Përzhita Reference Pluciennik, Lako, Përzhita, Brennan, Hodges, Bowden and Lako2004; Reference Bowden and Përzhita2014) and the Hellenistic and Roman villa at Malathrea to the south-east of the modern village of Mursi (Çondi Reference Çondi1984; Giorgi and Bogdani Reference Giorgi and Bogdani2012, 253–4). This corridor of land amounted to about 4 km². The corridor comprised fields along the lowest west-facing slopes of Monte Mile. Specifically, the small-scale survey investigated the area around Lake Bufi, the zone on either side of the Roman aqueduct to the west of the modern village of Xarra, and the pronounced ridge running from the village of Xarra through to and past the modern village of Mursi, up to the site of the villa at Malathrea (Fig. 4). Apart from allotments and gardens in the two villages within the survey area, this survey included open fields to the west of Xarra, as well as small pastures and orchards in the Pavllas valley leading from Mursi eastwards past the villa at Malathrea to the outlying hill on which the site of Çuka I Aitoit is located, and ultimately to Konispol at the end of this closed valley. This limited survey also aimed to establish if there was a major Roman site at Mursi, associated with the Early Roman family, the Pomponii (cf. Hansen Reference Hansen2009, 17–29).

Fig. 4.

View of Mursi, its school in the foreground, the artificial lake and the valley leading to Çuka i Aitoit (Courtesy of David Hernandez).

IV. SURVEY RESULTS

The survey located many scatters/sites with identifiable chronologies. Table A1 in the Appendix sets out the characteristics of the sites found, including the nature of the site, its visibility (with 1 being low, and 3 being high), the proposed dates of the features and the size.

The distribution of the sites and monuments (Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) found in terms of their material shows the marked impact of the Roman colonisation, almost certainly coinciding with the centuriation. In all 31 sites were identified as of Early to Mid-Roman date (of which 22 were aqueduct pillars and remains), 16 were recognised to be generic Roman (that is, with undiagnostic ceramics in terms of their date), and 12 scatters were specifically characterised by Late Roman ceramics. Some 59 sites belonged to the Roman period. By contrast, a tiny proportion, amounting to nine sites, were prehistoric, Hellenistic or Byzantine in date.

Fig. 5.

Pie chart showing the percentages of sites found in the ‘Mursi survey’.

Fig. 6.

Pie chart showing the percentages of undiagnostic prehistoric/Hellenistic material (number of sites = 3).

Fig. 7.

Pie chart showing the percentages of material from the Hellenistic period (number of sites = 2).

Fig. 8.

Pie chart showing the percentages of material from Early Roman sites (number of sites = 31, including Xarra–Butrint aqueduct pillars).

Fig. 9.

Pie chart showing the percentages of material from undiagnostic Roman sites (i.e. those scatters without readily identifiable wares) (number of sites = 16).

Fig. 10.

Pie chart showing the percentages of material from Late Roman sites (number of sites = 12).

Fig. 11.

Pie chart showing the percentages of material from Byzantine sites (number of sites = 4).

A few observations may be made about the more significant of these surface sites, especially those belonging to the Roman period.

A large site (sites 10–16, 27), found on the slope above, and west of, Malathrea, with pottery datable from the second up to the sixth century, represents a settlement that might be interpreted as the pars rustica of the fortified villa or, perhaps an associated open village (Fig. 12). Another possibility is that it represents a late settlement, a successor settlement of the Malathrea villa that lies down the slope near the spring (site 03), the latter having been abandoned during the Early Roman period. Close by, site 04 dates from the Mid- to Late Roman period on the basis of the ceramics. Next to this are little scatters (sites 28–33), possibly dwelling houses or stores, again to be related to the main evidence on the other slope. These dwellings were almost certainly associated with the villa at Malathrea. The presence of a natural water spring close to these sites (site 03) has to be considered as a focal point for any future research of this constellation of Roman-period sites (Fig. 11).

Fig. 12.

Location of scatters of mostly Roman-period material close to the Hellenistic and Roman villa of Malathrea.

Remains of another substantial Hellenistic and Early Roman villa were found in the village of Mursi, when the new school was built in the 1960s (sites 64–6 and 83) (Fig. 13). Modern housing on the adjacent hill, as well as the communist-period monument erected at its summit, appears to have destroyed much of the hilltop site through terracing and trenching. A number of diagnostic fragments and the extent of the scatters suggest that the site covered as much as 5 hectares. Reused Roman carved limestone blocks were recorded in modern terrace walls of the school, while local people described the discovery of columns and other architectural elements during the construction of the building (Fig. 13)Footnote ² . In addition, some Byzantine pottery from sites 67 and 69, shows certain intermittent continuity of use of the settlement into the Byzantine period.

Fig. 13.

Location of scatters of Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods at the village of Mursi.

Close to the modern town hall of Mursi lies a hilltop site heavily damaged by the construction of bunkers and an associated military headquarters dating to the communist era. Here a collection of Early to Mid-Roman pottery was recorded (site 04), but no remains of structures were visible.

Around the modern village of Xarra, a few scatters were documented following Budina's survey (1971) but modern construction has altered the visibility of these sites (sites 72–4). Generic Roman pottery and tiles were recovered but these were insufficient to define any buildings.

Another Roman villa or important site has been discovered on the Vrina Plain, beside the standing pillars of the Xarra–Butrint aqueduct (sites 50–1). Here, a standing wall with a threshold in situ and some carved limestone blocks belonged to a Roman-period dwelling, while the pottery, mostly dating to the first and third centuries, included examples of Sigillata Italica (Fig. 14).

Fig. 14.

Location of monuments and scatters in the area between Shën Dëlli and Xarra.

At the foot of the hill on which the modern village of Xarra is located, four new pillars of the Xarra–Butrint Roman aqueduct were found (cf. Wilson, Reference Wilson, Hansen, Hodges and Leppard2013). These pillars are not in situ as now they are abutting a modern agricultural channel, but some Roman-period scatters seem to indicate that the aqueduct ran alongside the hill of Xarra in order to enter it and reach a natural water spring. The survey was unable to find any pillars proceeding in the direction of Mursi.

A natural water spring was found on the eastern side of the hill on which the village of Xarra sits. It is just a little stream at ground level, but local people informed us of an ancient fountain that had once existed here before the construction of the present building in recent times.

In sum, the survey indicates four major Roman-period settlements in addition to those already known. The four new settlements comprise those at Shën Dëlli, Shën Dimitri, in Mursi, and close to Malathrea. The absence of Hellenistic, Byzantine and Ottoman ceramics tends to suggest the concentrated nature of settlements in those periods, perhaps – we may surmise – located where the present settlements of Shën Dëlli, Shën Dimitri, Mursi and Xarra are located today. Some confirmation of this is provided by the excavations in 2010 at Mursi, where Hellenistic remains as well as Ottoman ceramics and clay pipe fragments were found (David Hernandez, pers. comm.).

On the exposed hilltop of Shën Dëlli a range of Roman pottery was collected from an opportunistic section. Only the modern monastery and some Byzantine walls and buildings are visible, but this material suggests that a first- to third-century settlement was located here, presumably associated with the suburb at the bridgehead on the Vrina Plain.

Shën Dimitri has been surveyed and some of the already known burials have been recorded by hand-held GPS. The presence of Roman pottery, with dolia and coarse wares, perhaps suggests the existence of a small village or dwellings on the hill (site 04).