Butrint

Butrint was an ancient Greek polis and later Roman city and the seat of an early Christian bishopric in Epirus [1]. Bouthroton (modern day Butrint) was originally one of the major centres of the Epirote tribe of the Chaonians, part of the northwestern Greek group of tribes [1]. The inventories of bishoprics from the 10th to 12th centuries identify the bishop of Butrint as subject to the metropolitan bishopric of Nafpaktos [1]. Butrint became Catholic after it was conquered by the Angevins, and remained so throughout the fourteenth century [1]. The first modern archaeological excavations began in 1928 when the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini's Italy sent an expedition to Butrint [1]. Since 1993 further major excavations have taken place led by the Butrint Foundation in collaboration with the Albanian Institute of Archaeology [1].