Butrint Archaeological Park
UNESCO-listed ancient city on a wooded peninsula, with a Greek theatre, baptistery and Venetian castle.
Butrint stands on a peninsula between Lake Butrint and the Vivari Channel, opposite Corfu. Greek colonists from Corfu settled the hill in the eighth century BC, and a sanctuary of Asclepius drew pilgrims from across Epirus. The city became a Roman colony under Julius Caesar and Augustus, acquired baths, a forum and an aqueduct, and remained a bishopric into the Byzantine period. Venetian, Ottoman and Angevin rulers later fortified the channel before the site was abandoned to marshland.
Italian archaeologists led by Luigi Maria Ugolini began systematic excavation in 1928, and work resumed under Albanian and British teams from the 1990s. UNESCO inscribed Butrint as a World Heritage Site in 1992, and a national park was declared in 2000. A signed circuit leads past the theatre, the Roman baths, the great basilica, the circular baptistery with its mosaic floor and the Lion Gate, climbing to the acropolis castle that houses the site museum.
Highlights
- Greek theatre of the third century BC, later remodelled by the Romans
- Sixth-century baptistery with a mosaic pavement of birds and beasts
- Lion Gate and Water Gate in the city's defensive circuit
- Acropolis castle housing the Butrint site museum
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