A Mediterranean microcosm

The Butrint Museum was conceived and designed as a journey through the history of Butrint and, in particular, to highlight its connections to a Mediterranean world. The objects displayed are drawn primarily from Butrint but also from other nearby sites. The display follows an essentially chronological format, providing coherence for the complex 3,000-year history of the site.

Butrint took many forms in different ages, shaped by the near-constant interaction between the place, its lagoonal landscape and the Mediterranean. The museum highlights the rich material culture that makes up Butrint across these different guises.

The lithic instruments of manufacture from the beaches surrounding the lagoon highlight the importance of the rich natural resources, while the scarcity of Bronze Age to early Archaic material suggests the influence of the more powerful Corfu. The Hellenistic polis and sanctuary is juxtaposed with the rich and varied finds from nearby Phoenicê, while the prisms of expansion, patronage and luxury imports provide fascinating insights to Roman Butrint. Forming a cornerstone in the passage from the Adriatic to the Aegean, Butrint for sixth centuries was intimately linked with a greater Mediterranean world than ever before.

As a Byzantine kastron and then strongly fortified Medieval town under the Epirote Despotes, Butrint was increasingly an enclave in a region regularly changing hands. However, the city’s allegiance almost invariably lay beyond the sea. The old ties to Corfu are no time more direct than after Butrint passed into Venetian hands, its fisheries and fortifications sustained by Corfiot nobles.

Butrint encapsulate a Mediterranean story. Charting the history of the site, the Butrint Museum provides an insight to Butrint as a microcosm of Mediterranean history, characterised by its particular regional location and throughout by its position at the crossroads of empires.

 

• The Butrint Museum
• A Mediterranean microcosm
• The history of the museum
• QTVR of Butrint Museum
• QTVR of sculpture courtyard
• Missing antiquities