Butrint 7: Beyond Butrint: Kalivo, Mursi, Çuka e Aitoit, Diaporit and the Vrina Plain. Surveys and Excavations in the Pavllas River Valley, Albania, 1928-2015 (Butrint Archaeological Monographs)

This volume brings together unpublished Italian and Albanian archaeological reports and new archaeological studies from recent fieldwork that throw new light on the archaeology and history of the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. The International Conference on Insular Art (IIAC) is the leading forum for scholars of the visual and material culture of early medieval Ireland and Britain, including manuscript illumination, sculpture, metalwork, and textiles, and encompassing the work of Anglo-Saxon-, Celtic- and Norse-speaking artists. The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the eighth IIAC, which took place in Glasgow 11-14 July 2017. The theme of IIAC8 - Peopling Insular Art: Practice, Performance, Perception - was intended to focus attention on those who commissioned, created, and engaged with Insular art objects, and how they conceptualised, fashioned, and experienced them (with engagement' covering not only contemporary audiences, but later medieval and modern ones too). The twenty-one articles gathered here reflect the diverse ways in which this theme has been interpreted. They demonstrate the intellectual vibrancy of Insular art studies, its international outlook, its interdiscplinarity, and its openness to innovative technologies and approaches, while at the same time demonstrating the strength and enduring value of established methodologies and research practices. The studies collected here focus not only on made objects, but on the creative processes and intellectual decisions which informed their making. This volume brings Insular makers the illuminators, pattern-makers, rubricators, carvers, and casters to the fore. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Archaeology This volume brings together a collection of reports and essays pertaining to the Butrint Foundation project at Butrint, Albania. It includes unpublished archive reports discovered in Rome and Tirana, commentaries on their methodology and history, as well as several new fieldwork reports arising from research made or supported by the Butrint Foundation. Together with other volumes published in the Butrint Foundation series, it makes this Adriatic Sea port and its hinterland one of the most intensively published coastal littorals in the Mediterranean region, the so-called Corrupting Sea Volume 7 in the Butrint excavation series includes unpublished archive reports discovered in Rome and Tirana, commentaries on their methodology and history, as well as several new fieldwork reports arising from research made or supported by the Butrint Foundation.