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About Butrint | Early Butrint | Roman Rule | Byzantine Rule
Battle for Butrint | Threats to Butrint | Bibliography
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Courtesy of The Butrint Foundation
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Threats to the Survival of the Archaeological Site of Butrint
Until the early twentieth century, Butrint was covered in earth and thick vegetation from years of flooding and abandonment. In the late nineteen twenties, the Italians took great interest in Butrint and sent an archaeological team under the direction of Luigi Ugolini to carry out excavations there. Mussolini's Fascist government sponsored this project, for Mussolini considered himself the new founder of Rome, the new Aeneas. Virgil recorded that Aeneas had stopped at Butrint on his way to found Rome; therefore, Mussolini sent archaeologists to trace Aeneas's steps and to tighten the spiritual connection between Rome and Butrint. Ugolini uncovered many of the site's most exceptional monuments, including the theater area and the baptistry.
Following the liberation of Albania in 1944 from the occupation of Nazi Germany, Albanian archaeologists undertook an even more ambitious series of excavations. Their efforts culminated in the foundation of an independent Albanian Institute of Archaeology, which continues to carry out archaeological and conservation efforts at Butrint.
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Courtesy of The Butrint Foundation
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In the post-communist era, Butrint is threatened by economic pressure to develop the region for tourism and by a lack of central government funding to support the conservation programs for the archaeological site. To protect the site from these threats, Butrint was included on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1992 and on the World Heritage List in Danger in 1997, in order to guarantee emergency action against the serious conditions that endanger it. In an effort to prevent the development of the site, the Albanian Ministry of Culture declared an area of 29 km2 as a National Park, with Butrint at the very heart of the Park. Since the Albanian Government's declaration of the National Park in July 1999, UNESCO has agreed to enlarge the area of the World Heritage site.
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Courtesy of The Butrint Foundation
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The greatest challenge facing the new administration for the National Park is how to maintain Butrint's rare combination of archaeology and nature, while promoting tourism to provide a source of income for the region. Because southwestern Albania urgently needs investment, archaeologists are calling for a plan of "managed tourism," which they define as "a critical compromise...found between development and conservation so that the ancient city and its magical setting are not destroyed as has happened to many other classical sites."5
Butrint constitutes an exceptional cultural landscape, which has developed organically over many centuries and has escaped the kind of aggressive development that has damaged most historic landscapes in the Mediterranean region. By finding a balance between conservation and development, archaeologists will ensure that this microcosm of the Mediterranean past supports Albania's future, and is not despoiled as so many similar sites have been.
5 Hodges, Richard, Sally Martin, and John Moreland. "Butrint, Albania: A Microcosm of Mediterranean History," Minerva Vol. 7, Number 12, (March/April 1996): 13.
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About Butrint | Early Butrint | Roman Rule | Byzantine Rule
Battle for Butrint | Threats to Butrint | Bibliography
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