During the excavation season of 2007, the southwest corner of the Forum was exposed which revealed that the pavement covered an area of 20m north-south by an estimated 45m east-west. The Forum pavements consist of fine limestone slabs surrounded by a perimeter gutter leading up to two marble steps. The steps along the south side led directly into a building fronted by granite columns. The architecture suggests that the building may have functioned as a basilica, which would have housed legal and civic offices. In front of the probable basilica, a fine marble moulding for a statue base was found straddling the gutter, probably one of many that were originally located along the Forum outer limits.
The west side of the Forum was originally defined by a roadway that allowed access from the waterfront to the theatre area. By the 2nd century AD, the road was constrained by the construction of the Peristyle Building that included a long portico along the western side of the Forum. The Tripartite Building on the northwest side of the Forum can be interpreted as three shrines-one of which was dedicated to Minerva Augusta. To the east of the three rooms, a lofty flight of marble steps led up from the Forum pavement to an elevated terrace, and presumably to an important Roman building.
Despite the demolition of an extensive tract of the Hellenistic city wall at this point it seems likely that the Roman Forum was incorporated into an existing agora. Pre-Roman material is prevalent in the excavation assemblages and, aside from Hellenistic ceramics, 38 coins of the 3rd -2nd centuries BC have been found in the excavations at the Forum.
A cast mosaic fragment found in the Forum would have been made in Italy, and attest further to the wealth and contacts of the inhabitants of Butrint in the Augustan period. The archaeological evidence from the excavation appears to demonstrate that the institution of the Forum and other associated Roman buildings occurred in the late Republican period.
The 2007 excavations produced a range of significant sculptural fragments, revealing two distinct phases of dismantling, destruction and discarding of statuary: firstly, in the mid-late 3rd century AD, a phase to which the life-size marble togate Roman statue belongs; and secondly, during the period of urban revival and landscaping of the 10th – 11th centuries. A fragment of another life-sized male figure with shoulder drapery was found also in this season of excavations. Furthermore, two under life-sized parts of nude male legs again indicate the presence of statues or deities or heroes in the Roman Forum of Butrint.
One of the most surprising results from the archaeological excavation is that the forum pavement is inclined by 0,50m from south to north. It is unlikely that this is an original feature of the Forum and so must be the result of displacement through either subsidence or seismic activity. According to environmental interpretations the second version it is most likely. This event took place during the late 3rd or early 4th century and resulted in a rapid inundation of the Forum, which then effectively became a pond in the centre of the ancient city. It is evident from numerous architectural fragments that the buildings lining the Forum were spoliated and demolished. In the late 5th or 6th century, however, the Forum area was re-occupied. A structure with a large apse was erected in the southern area of the Forum and hard cocciopesto floors were laid to combat water intrusion during seasonal flooding episodes. This building and other late antique structures were cleared in a wide scale redevelopment of the city in the 10th or 11th century, where stepped terraces were established for tenement buildings. The Forum has yielded a number of Middle Byzantine coins, which were found in terrace walls, thereby dating this constructing phase. Associated ceramic finds of the 10th – 11th and 11th – 12th centuries support this emerging picture.
Late medieval ceramics of the 13th – 14th centuries and a few dated to the Venetian period (15th-16th centuries) indicate that the area remained more or less under continuous occupation until the attested abandonment of the city by the Venetians in 1572. The most significant find of the later period was discovered concealed within the wall of a simple domestic building in the area of the ex Roman Forum: a 14th century coin hoard, consisting of 15 Venetian torneselli (base silver coin).