As per agreements with the Albanian colleagues of the Institute of Archeology of Tirana and the Butrint National Park, the 2021 fieldwork season of the Butrint Project marked the reprise of the excavation after a one year hiatus due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The main objective of this year’s work was trying to understand how the Acropolis was structured both in the Archaic period and in the Roman-Imperial one.
The areas involved in the excavation were four: two in proximity to the areas already investigated in 2019, on the plateau between Room VI, Room IX and X (reference: Butrint Foundation published plans in Butrint 4), called Area 4 and 5, respectively; two right next to the Medieval wall circuit: one South of Room III and West of Room V, the other at the southern end of Room XI, called Area 6 and 7, respectively. Investigations in all four of these areas answered the initial research questions about the Archaic and Imperial life of the Acropolis, bringing with them very promising results that the team is currently analyzing and studying for future workshops and publications. At the end of the excavation some protective interventions were carried out at the most damaged walls, whose conservation was at risk, in order to preserve the structures.
At the same time, the topographic survey of the city continued. This year, it focused on the Archaic walls surrounding the southern slope of the Acropolis, which were freed from vegetation, surveyed using t Laser Scanning, analyzed and described in detail.