Butrint 6: Excavations on the Vrina Plain Volume 3: The Roman and Late Antique Pottery from the Vrina Plain Excavations

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.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements

1. Presentation methodology
2. Late Republic to Early Imperial period
3. Domus construction (and use)
4. Late 4th to late 5th century AD
5. The 6th century AD
6. 5th and 6th century material in later phases
7. The Aqueduct (Area E)
8. The Temple Mausoleum
9. The Monument area
10. Area G
11. Area J: Bathhouse
12. Conclusions. Pottery trends on the Vrina Plain and Butrint

Appendix A. The pottery typology of Butrint, local, regional and imported forms: general comments
Appendix B. Contexts from Forum I
Appendix C. Thin-section analyses of Butrint ceramics
Leandro Fantuzzi