This is the second volume arising from the 1994–2003 excavations of the Triconch Palace at Butrint (Albania), which charted the history of a major Mediterranean waterfront site from the 2nd to the 15th centuries AD. The sequence (Butrint 3: Excavations at the Triconch Palace: Oxbow 2011) included the development of a palatial late Roman house, followed by intensive activity between the 5th and 7th centuries involving domestic occupation, metal-working, fishing and burial. The site saw renewed activity from the 10th century, coinciding with the revival of the town of Butrint, and for the following 300 years continued in intermittent use associated with its channel-side location. This volume reports on the finds from the site (excluding the pottery), which demonstrate the ways in which the lives, diet and material culture of a Mediterranean population changed across the arc of the late Roman and Medieval periods. It includes discussion of the environmental evidence, the human and faunal remains, metal-working evidence, and the major assemblages of glass, coins and small finds, giving an insight into the health, subsistence base and material culture of the population of a Mediterranean site across more than 1000 years. The findings raise important questions regarding the ways in which changes in the circumstances of the town affected the population between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They illustrate in particular how an urban Roman center became more rural during the 6th century with a population that faced major challenges in their health and living conditions.

This volume considers “lived space” as a scholarly approach to the past, showing how spatial approaches can present innovative views of the world of Late Antiquity, integrating social, economic and cultural developments and putting centre stage this fundamental dimension of social life. Bringing together an international group of scholars working on areas as diverse as Britain, the Iberian Peninsula, Jordan and the Horn of Africa, this book includes burgeoning fields of study such as lived spaces in the context of ships and seafaring during this period. Chapters investigate the history, function and use of different spaces in their own right and identify the social and historical logic presiding over continuity and/or change. They also explore the fluidity of lived space in both its physical and conceptual dimensions, analysing issues like agency and intentionality as well as meaning and social relations. Space is the fundamental dimension of social life, the arena where it unfolds and the stage where social values and hierarchies are represented; analysis of space allows us to understand history through different means of shaping, occupying and controlling space. Considering Late Antiquity through a spatial perspective offers a complex and stimulating picture of this pivotal period, and this volume provides avenues for the development of further research and discussion in this area. Lived Spaces in Late Antiquity is a fascinating resource for students and scholars interested in space and spatiality in the late antique world, as well as archaeology, classical studies and late antique studies more generally.

Butrint, ancient Buthrotum, has taken many forms in different ages, shaped by the near-constant interaction between the place, its lagoonal landscape and the Mediterranean. Though Butrint does not appear on any of the records of early Greek colonization to identify it as a Corcyrean settlement, strong links must have existed between it and the metropolitan Corinthian colony of Corfu. Blessed with springs that possessed healing qualities, a small polis was created - extended to incorporate a healing sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius. Julius Caesar, harboring at Butrint in urgent need of supplies to sustain his struggle against Pompey, must have viewed the sanctuary, ringed by largely dried-out marshland, as the perfect site to settle veterans as a colony. It was an obvious cornerstone in controlling the passage from the Adriatic to the Aegean. The early settlers seem to have been limited in number and possibly mainly of civilian status. However, the political changes to the city's magistrature were immediate, and within a relatively short time-span fundamental changes to the physical make-up of the city were set in motion. Its new Roman status also located Butrint as a directly before the highest authorities in Rome, and within fifteen years or so, under Augustus's guidance following his victory at Actium, the city was refounded as a colony and awarded a pivotal role in Virgil's court-sponsored foundation epic, The Aeneid. Now linked to the Victory City of Nicopolis rather than in the shadow of Corfu, Butrint prospered. The urban fabric evolved, sometimes faltered, but was essentially sustained until the later 6th century A.D. This present volume is an assessment of the Roman archaeology, a compilation of studies and field reports that focuses upon the foundation and early history of the colony.

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 II discusses the finds from the Vrina Plain excavations. This volume provides an insight into how the Vrina Plain community lived, worked and ultimately died and includes chapters on the medieval and post-medieval ceramics from the excavations, analysis of the human and faunal remains, environmental evidence, Roman and Medieval coins, a detailed study of the small finds as well as a discussion of the glass including a report on a number of glass cakes, ingots of raw glass associated with glass working that were found during the excavations. The volume also reports on five lead seals dating from the late 9th to the 10th century, an uncommon find but one which when considered with the contemporary coins suggests that for 100 years the Vrina Plain was Butrint.

This volume is the fruit of a highly productive international research gathering academic and professional (field- and museum) colleagues to discuss new results and approaches, recent finds and alternative theoretical assessments of the period of transition and transformation of classical towns in Late Antiquity. Experts from an array of modern countries attended and presented to help compare and contrast critically archaeologies of diverse regions and to debate the qualities of the archaeology and the current modes of study. While a number of papers inevitably focused on evidence available for both Spain and Portugal, we were delighted to have a spread of contributions that extended the picture to other territories in the Late Roman West and Mediterranean. The emphasis was very much on the images presented by archaeology (rescue and research works, recent and past), but textual data were also brought into play by various contributors.

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 III discusses the Roman and Late Antique pottery from the Vrina Plain excavations. This detailed study of the ceramics follows the archaeological sequence recovered from the excavations in chronological order and provides a comprehensive and in depth review of the pottery, context by context, offering an important insight into the supply, as well as typology, of local and imported pottery available to the inhabitants of the Vrina Plain during this period. This is followed by a discussion on how the pottery trends found on the Vrina Plain relate to that of other sites in Butrint, both within the town (Triconch Palace; the Forum) and outside (Vrina Plain training school villa excavations; the villa of Diaporit). The volume also presents an overview of some of the principal typological developments found across Butrint so as to allow the reader to place the Vrina finds in context, including a discussion of a number of key contexts from the Forum, as well as the findings from thin-section petrology of some of the ceramics.

This volume brings together unpublished Italian and Albanian archaeological reports and new archaeological studies from recent fieldwork that throw new light on the archaeology and history of the Pavllas River Valley, the Mediterranean alluvial plain in the territory of Butrint, ancient Buthrotum, in southwestern Albania. It gives prominence for the first time to two important sites, Kalivo and Çuka e Aitoit, which are here reinterpreted and shown to have played major roles in the early history of Butrint as it evolved in the later first millennium BC to emerge as the key city of Chaonia in Epirus. Butrint 7 also presents the full excavation report of the Late Bronze Age and Hellenistic fortified site of Mursi, in addition to other Butrint Foundation surveys and excavations in the hinterland of Butrint, including the Roman villa maritima at Diaporit, the villa suburbana on the Vrina Plain, and Roman sites on Alinura Bay and at the Customs House, as well as new surveys of the early modern Triangular Fortress and a survey to locate the lost Venetian village of Zarópulo. The volume also features a new study of the Hellenistic bronze statuette of Pan found on Mount Mile and of his sanctuary at Butrint. The volume concludes with a comprehensive reassessment of the Pavllas River Valley in relation to Butrint, from the Palaeolithic to the modern eras, examining how dominion, territory, environment and the ‘corrupting sea’ reshaped Butrint and its fluvial corridor diachronically and particularly brought profound territorial, economic and social alterations under the Roman Empire.

In The Long Sixth Century in Eastern Europe, Florin Curta offers a social and economic history of East Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe during the 6th and 7th centuries.

Burial and Memorial explores funerary and commemorative archaeology A.D. 284-650, across the late antique world. This second volume includes papers exploring all aspects of funerary archaeology, from scientific samples in graves, to grave goods and tomb robbing and a bibliographic essay. It brings into focus neglected regions not usually considered by funerary archaeologists in NW Europe, such as the Levant, where burial archaeology is rich in grave good, to Sicily and Sardinia, where post-mortem offerings and burial manipulations are well-attested. We also hear from excavations in Britain, from Canterbury and London, and see astonishing fruits from the application of science to graves recently excavated in Trier.

This book is a collective reflection on the relationship between theory and methods, as practiced by American archaeologists of the Byzantine period in Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, and Egypt between the 1990s and 2020s. The eleven authors represent a generational voice that employed theory to redirect the established narratives of the golden age of Byzantine archaeology (1960s–1980s) that privileged art and religion. Beyond Icons: Theories and Methods in Byzantine Archaeology in North America originated in three conferences (2010, 2012, and 2013) organized by the Program of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. Acknowledging the role that Dumbarton Oaks played in the golden age of Byzantine archaeology, Program Director Margaret Mullett designed these conferences as exercises in conceptualizing the field’s future. The chapters consider theories of fragments, methodologies in regional surface survey, stratigraphy, habitus, phenomenology, gender theory, craft, dreams, and sound. In doing so, they capture a moment in the study of Byzantine archaeology and material culture and chart out future directions for the field. This book will appeal to scholars and students alike, as well as all those interested in Byzantine Studies, medieval archaeology (particularly of the eastern Mediterranean), and Byzantine material culture. It will also be of interest to anyone seeking to understand the emerging narrative of a global Middle Ages. The chapters reflect the ways in which the study of Byzantine archaeology was shaped by the scholarship of those working in the United States and Canada.