Butrint 6 describes the excavations carried out on the Vrina Plain by the Butrint Foundation from 2002–2007. Lying just to the south of the ancient port city of Butrint, these excavations have revealed a 1,300 year long story of a changing community that began in the 1st century AD, one which not only played its part in shaping the city of Butrint but also in how the city interacted and at times reacted to the changing political, economic and cultural situations occurring across the Mediterranean World over this period. Volume I discusses the results from the excavations, tracing the development of the area from an early Roman bridgehead suburb during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD to a major 3rd-century domus, one of the largest of its kind in the province of Epirus Vetus, its transformation into a new residential centre dominated by a Christian basilica in Late Antiquity, to becoming the home of a Byzantine archon during the 9th and 10th centuries when it was, in all but name, Butrint, and its subsequent uses following its abandonment due to the rising water table. This is followed by a description of the domus mosaics and a detailed examination of the basilica mosaics, analysing the imagery, meaning and context of this intricate and detailed pavement, together with discussions of the Vrina Plain and its place within the story of Butrint and the wider Mediterranean World during the Roman and Byzantine periods.
Preface and acknowledgements
Simon Greenslade and Richard Hodges
INTRODUCTION
1. The history of the Vrina Plain
Simon Greenslade
2. The Roman land organisation of the Butrint hinterland
David Bescoby
THE EXCAVATIONS
3. Early Imperial period: 1st and 2nd century AD – The archaeology and growth of a
suburban settlement
Simon Greenslade
4. Late Imperial: the 3rd and 4th century AD – The archaeology of a channel-side domus
Simon Greenslade
5. Late 4th to late 5th century AD – The decline and reuse of the domus
Simon Greenslade
6. The 6th century AD – the religious house on the Plain
Simon Greenslade
7. 7th–13th century AD: a Byzantine central-place and its aftermath
Simon Greenslade
8. The Temple Mausoleum excavations
Simon Greenslade and Sarah Leppard with Oliver Gilkes
9. The Monument area
Sarah Leppard with Simon Greenslade
THE MOSAICS
10. The mosaic pavements of the great peristyle domus
John Mitchell
11. The mosaic pavement of the basilica
John Mitchell
INTERPRETATION AND DISCUSSION
12. The Roman suburb on the Vrina Plain and its issues
Simon Greenslade and Richard Hodges
13. From villa to church, c. AD 250–550?
Simon Greenslade and Richard Hodges
14. The aristocratic oikos on the Vrina Plain, Butrint c. AD 830–1200
Simon Greenslade and Richard Hodges
Bibliography
Index
Plates
