Presents Middle Byzantine archaeology from Butrint and Saranda, exploring trade, defenses, and settlement in the southern Adriatic region.
Butrint 8 is largely devoted to the Middle Byzantine archaeology discovered by the Butrint Foundation’s projects at Butrint itself, in its environs, and in the nearby port of Saranda, ancient Onchesmos. The volume includes a full report on the excavations in Butrint’s western defenses, built in the 6th century as a proteichisma, and maintained in use until the 9th century when tower 1 partly perished in a fire and tower 2 was abandoned. From these 9th-century levels came a major assemblage of traded and local ceramics as well as glass cullet. The report also describes the reuse of the defenses until the 16th century when Butrint was abandoned. This volume also includes a section devoted to Butrint’s Middle Byzantine enclave occupying its hinterland, including a new study of the Dema (boundary) wall, the hilltop fortress of Çuka e Aitoit and an excavation of a settlement on the plain opposite the town. The third part of the book focuses upon Saranda, ancient Onchesmos. This includes a short report on excavations made in the port that brought to light Middle Byzantine remains as well as a major reassessment of the sanctuary church of Santa Quaranta, re-examining its Late Roman origins and its major rebuilding in the Middle Byzantine period. Butrint 8 is a benchmark for research on the Middle Byzantine period in the southern Adriatic Sea region, shedding light on an age when Butrint lay on the western limits of Byzantium, on the long-distance trade of this period, and on the character of settlement in this period.
1. Introduction and acknowledgements, by Richard Hodges and Nevila Molla
Part 1
2. Butrint’s Western Defences: excavations in towers 1 and 2, 2004–2022, by Nevila Molla with Appendix 1, by Nevila Molla, and Appendix 2, by Paul Reynolds
3. The proteichisma: excavations of 2009, by Solinda Kamani
4. A palmette lekytho from Butrint, by Nadia Aleotti
5. The glass from the Western Defences at Butrint, by Margherita Ferri
6. Coins from the excavations of the Western Defences of Butrint, by Sam Moorhead, with Pagona Papadopoulou and Elena Baldi
7. The small finds from the Western Defences, by John Mitchell
8. The archaeobotanical finds from Tower 2 in the Western Defences, by Riccardo Tomasini, Claudia Moricca and Laura Sadori
9. Archaeomalacology in the Western Defences: from domestic consumption to large-scale processing of mussels, by Rena Veropoulidou
10. An archaeological reassessment of the Great Basilica area: from a Roman bathhouse to a Venetian dwelling, by Nevila Molla with an Appendix by Oliver Gilkes
Part 2
11. The Butrint enclave: the Vrina Plain, Dema wall, and Çuka e Ajtoit, by Richard Hodges and Nevila Molla
12. Small finds from the Mausoleum and the Villa Rustica complex on the Vrina Plain, by John Mitchell with Oliver Gilkes and Paweł Nowakowski
Part 3
13. Saranda, ancient Onchesmos: the archaeology of an Ionian Sea port from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages, by Richard Hodges, Oliver Gilkes and Nevila Molla
14. A reappraisal of the Jewish Synagogue and Christian Basilica on the Rruga Skënderbeu in Saranda and their mosaics, by John Mitchell
15. Two rescue excavations in Saranda, and the question of ‘Slavic’ wares, by Oliver Gilkes and Joanita Vroom, with a contribution by Klodiana Kondo and Paul Reynolds
16. Healing waters: the Basilica of the Forty Saints at Saranda revisited, by John Mitchell and Nevila Molla with contributions by Richard Hodges and Eleanor Jolliffe and an appendix by Helen Howard
Part 4
17. Butrint and the Big Sea in the Early Middle Ages, by Richard Hodges and Nevila Molla
Appendix
An interview with Dhimitër Çondi, by David Hernandez, Raphael Hodges, Richard Hodges and Nevila Molla
Bibliography
