THE LOOTING OF BUTRINT AND PHOENICÊ
BUTRINT
Butrint has been excavated for over 70 years. The first excavations,
in 1928-1943, were undertaken by an Italian Archaeological Mission,
headed by Luigi Ugolini. Following the Second World War an Albanian
archaeologist, Dhimosten Budina, led research programmes at
Butrint. Large-scale excavations were not undertaken until the
1970s, when a generation of archaeologists was trained at Butrint
to complement the creation of the Academy of Sciences and its
new Centre for Archaeology.
In 1940 the Italian Mission constructed
a store room and study centre from the ruins of a medieval castle
on the acropolis. The rooms were used to research and display
the many objects found in the Italian excavation campaigns,
but the Second World War left them badly damaged and some of
the finds appear to have been stolen. In the late 1980s the
Centre for Archaeology converted the stores into a museum complex,
transforming the main water cistern of the complex into an enlarged
subterranean display area.
L: The Italian Archaeological Mission
museum at Butrint, 1940 | R: The massive walls of Phoenice
This museum was the main target for the looting
which started in April 1991. In the first years of looting many
important items of sculpture recovered by the Italian excavation
campaigns in Butrint and Phoenicê were stolen and exported.
Much of the looting went unnoticed by international agencies,
but the Institute of Archaeology responded by transporting many
of the most important items remaining at Butrint and at other
sites to Tirana for safe keeping. The lack of a secure museum
in Butrint has meant that these items still remain in the Institute
of Archaeology’s Museum in Tirana.
The looting of March 1997 was much more chaotic:
many of the storerooms were broken into and material was scattered
within the rooms. Many objects were moved a short distance and
hidden for later transportation, presumably abroad. Some of
these have been retrieved from the fields and ditches where
they were initially hidden but never collected. Numerous small
objects (coins, brooches etc.) were also stolen and are unlikely
to be recovered.
Statues in the
ruined portico of the Italian Archaeological Mission museum,
after the Second World War
In September 1997 UNESCO sent an emergency
mission to Butrint, which included the director of the Butrint
Foundation, Sir Patrick Fairweather. As a result, Butrint was
added to the World Heritage Sites in Danger List and a new inventory
of the stores and an assessment of the stolen objects were commissioned.
A recommendation was also made to the Albanian Government that
a new local office for the co-ordination of Butrint be set up
as a matter of urgency and a management plan be drawn up to
guide the future development of the site.
These activities have now been completed,
the looting has reduced significantly, and, in addition, funding
has been successfully sought by the Butrint Foundation’s
Scientific Director, Richard Hodges, to train a new generation
of archaeologists in modern techniques of archaeology (with
training excavations based at Butrint and bursaries for studies
abroad), to establish a new research centre for archaeology
in Tirana (the International Centre for Albanian Archaeology)
and to create Albania’s first rescue archaeological unit.
These projects are all funded by donations from the Packard
Humanities Institute.
Butrint remains on the World Heritage in Danger
List but as a result of this renaissance in Albanian archaeology
and with the aid of a strong collaboration between the Ministry
of Culture, the Institute of Archaeology and the Butrint Foundation
some of the looted items from Butrint have now been returned.
PHOENICÊ
Phoenicê was protected as a cultural monument by the 1948
cultural monuments legislation, but subsequently received little
institutional attention. Whereas Butrint has suffered from the
theft of items that had been professionally excavated and, on
the whole, catalogued, at Phoenice criminal gangs have used
heavy machinery to loot unexcavated items. However in 2000 a
new research programme was developed by the Institute of Archaeology
and the University of Bologna. The Mifflin Memorial Fund awarded
a grant for the creation of a ranger service to protect the
site and to act as a model for the development of a national
ranger scheme. The looting has not stopped, but increased local,
national and international awareness of the problem has helped
to alleviate the problem.
L: The hill of Phoenice | R: Robbed tombs
in the Hellenistic cemetery at Phoenice