At Butrint, the work isn’t about excavation. It’s about survival.
The Roman Forum at Butrint has been standing for over two thousand years. But standing, in this case, is doing a lot of work.Vegetation has pushed its roots into ancient joints. Seasonal flooding has saturated the masonry. Erosion has worn at surfaces that survived the fall of Rome, the Byzantine era, and the medieval period. Without intervention, the walls that have endured so much will not endure much longer.
Like many ancient sites across the Mediterranean, Butrint has faced decades of conservation challenges that have tested ancient sites across the Mediterranean for generations. When the Butrint Management Foundation was established as an independent body to take on the site’s long-term stewardship, it inherited a complex picture and set about addressing it systematically.
“At Butrint, gaps in regular monitoring and delays in intervention have allowed deterioration to progress,” says Jorida Muho, Executive Director of the Butrint Management Foundation.”Climatic pressures, fluctuating water levels and unmanaged vegetation have aggravated the condition of exposed remains, allowing small defects to develop into more serious conservation problems.”
The ECL Grant project now underway is designed to stop that process before it becomes irreversible.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site To Discover
Tucked in southern Albania on a peninsula where a lagoon meets the Vivari Channel, Butrint is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that spans nearly two thousand years of continuous human history, and is one of the Mediterranean’s most extraordinary archaeological landscapes that most of the world has yet to discover. From the 3rd century BC through the 16th century AD. Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Venetians each claimed it in turn, leaving layer upon layer of civilization on the same small peninsula, in a density of history that is rare anywhere in the ancient world.
At its heart is the Roman Forum, a long, open square approximately 72 meters by 20 meters, paved with large limestone slabs, once framed by colonnaded porticoes and monumental temples. “Standing in the Forum, you are looking into the public centre of the ancient city,” Muho explains. “The remains of a Tripartite Building, whose rooms functioned as shrines likely dedicated to Minerva Augusta, border the northwest side. Evidence of painted walls and marble wall coverings helps us imagine the colour and richness of this architectural setting.”
What makes the Forum so striking is not just what survives but how much it still communicates about the city that was.
ARL Director Darius Arya first visited Butrint in 2023, prior to the ECL grant funding. The impression was immediate. “It is an extraordinary site,” he says, “with great didactics and signage. We have had the privilege to support the Butrint Management Foundation’s efforts in making more of the site sustainable and opening up more of the forum buildings to the public.”
Evidence in the Walls
Conservation projects are sometimes harder to explain than excavation. There are no dramatic finds, no moment of discovery. The work is slow, careful, and easy to underestimate, until you understand, or better see, what happens without it. At Butrint, the evidence is right there in the walls.
“In a ruined Roman wall, the exposed wall top is particularly vulnerable,” Muho explains. “Water enters through cracks and open joints, and runoff can wash out weakened mortar and fine material from the wall’s core. This creates voids and weakens the bond between its components. Woody roots exploit existing cracks and joints, exerting pressure as they thicken and gradually displacing stones.”
Left unchecked, that process ends in incremental collapse, making it difficult to detect until the damage is severe. The loss is not just of stone and mortar. It is of original construction details, evidence of how monuments were altered over time, and the information archaeologists depend on to understand the site. The Butrint Management Foundation’s response is methodical: digital documentation first, then controlled vegetation removal, treatment of damaging roots, protection of vulnerable floors, and consolidation of deteriorated wall tops with stone and compatible lime mortar. Each intervention is chosen for the specific condition of each structure. All work adheres to UNESCO and ICOMOS international conservation standards alongside Albania’s own legal framework for cultural heritage.
Following the project’s progress, Arya has noted: “We saw with their own competent team the successful recuperation of an important part of the Roman forum. The clearance and thorough conservation of the walls is preserving the rich heritage of Butrint for all.”
Conservation as Opening
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Butrint project is what conservation makes possible beyond preservation itself. Muho comments, “This [ECL grant] has made possible the conservation of the Roman Forum and its opening to visitors for the first time,” Muho notes. “It brings an important part of the ancient city into the visitor experience, allowing people to understand its public spaces and history through the surviving remains.”
A forum that was inaccessible is now becoming a place people can walk through, read, and understand. That shift, from preserved but closed to conserved and open, is the project’s most visible outcome.
For Arya, what made the Butrint Management Foundation a compelling ECL partner was precisely the strength it already brought to the table. “This is an independent, autonomous foundation with well-trained, skilled people and good staff,” he says. “It’s worth investing resources in a place that already has resources, commitment, and respected values. They’re doing a good job engaging large numbers of people, and with Albanian tourism growing rapidly, this project will help build their capacity and strengthen the site’s profile on the international stage.”
Community engagement runs through the project from the start. The Butrint Management Foundation has a dedicated community specialist on staff whose role is to maintain dialogue with local people and develop initiatives that connect residents to the heritage on their doorstep because, as Muho puts it, “local people are the primary beneficiaries of our work and they are also essential partners in safeguarding Butrint’s heritage.”
Butrint is, as Arya describes it, an overwhelming site. It is expansive, layered, surrounded by water, and carrying the weight of twenty-five centuries of human history. “It’s a tremendous city,” he says simply. “And it’s worth every resource we can bring to it.”
Butrint has survived two thousand years of history. With the careful, methodical, and unglamorous investment of this project, it can survive what comes next.
The Conservation of the Religious Monuments in Butrint is an ECL Grant recipient, funded by Ancient Rome Live. Learn more here.
