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Excavation

  • Monastery of 40 Martyrs
  • Sarandё
  • Santi Quaranta/Agio Saranda

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    Credits

    • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

      MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

      ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

      AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

    • AIAC_logo logo

    Summary (English)

    • TDuring the 2012 excavations in the church of the 40 Saints, carried out between August 8 and 27, the work was focused on three different sectors. The first sector was located outside the western walls of the monument. The second sector where the excavations were concentrated was in the south. While the third sector where excavations took place was in the area of the Baptistery. The surroundings of the baptistery are located inside a building that was used by the army between 1930 and 1997. In one of them, after removing the concrete floor and its cobblestone bedding, the presence of two rooms separated by a wall along the north-south axis was revealed. In the northern part of this room, a layer of roof tiles was discovered and a layer of mixed brown soil came out below it. Inside this layer was noticed the presence of ceramics, lamps and coins (mid-6th century AD), as well as some iron nails. The second room was filled with stones up to a depth of 1 m, which also served as a leveler for the floor of the army building. Also, in the other room inside the baptistery, was removed firstly the concrete floor as well as the filling of large dry-laid limestone to raise the level of the floor and then the tiles. After the stones were removed, the floor was laid with large limestone slabs. In the north-west corner of the compound was a rectangular structure built of stone slabs bound with mud and laid with bricks, which were burnt. At the end of the excavation of the baptistery complex, it was observed that it had a large number of different niches, most of them equipped with piers. Excavations outside the western gallery revealed the southern retaining wall of the stairwell as well as the stepped structure of the gallery wall in the southwest corner. The material discovered during the excavation of this space consisted of clay lamps, glass lamps for chandeliers, window panes, coins, etc. Excavations outside the southern portico were carried out to reveal the road that originally communicated with the underground space and had been in the form of a tunnel, just like that of the eastern wing. In a second phase, the door that communicated with the underground ensemble was closed. The floor of this former alley was paved with stone slabs, using the same technique as the underground rooms. The archaeological material discovered consisted of ceramics: amphorae of Eastern, African and Italic productsion the same as those found in other environments, together with few pieces of candlesticks, which together belong to the VI century AD.

    • Ulsi Tota - Institute of Archaeology 
    • Kriledjan Ҫipa - Regional Directorate of Cultural Heritage-Vlora 

    Director

    • Skënder Muçaj

    Team

    • Kosta Lako
    • Skёnder Bushi - Agjencia e Shërbimit Arkeologjik (Archaeological Service Agency)
    • Suela Xhyheri

    Research Body

    • Instituti Arkeologjik Tiranë (Albanian Institute of Archaeology)

    Funding Body

    • Instituti Arkeologjik Tiranë (Albanian Institute of Archaeology)

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