The Theatre - Butrint, Albania
The Italian archaeologist Luigi Maria Ugolini discovered the Theatre in 1928-30. Ugolini's greatest discovery was a line of statues - including the famous Goddess of Butrint - in front of the stage building.The first theatre followed the Greek style and would have been used by worshippers and the priests of the Sanctuary for religious ceremonies and public discussion. A late 4th-century BC inscription (located on the seating banks in the theatre) tells us the theatre construction was funded by donations to the Sanctuary.
On the surrounding walls are numerous manumission inscriptions that record the freeing of slaves in honour of the god, Asclepius. In the 2nd century AD the theatre was rebuilt and enlarged in the Roman style with a stage. The Roman theatre was the centrepiece of the town.
- The Theatre
- The Theatre and the Treasury
- The demolition of the Theatre
- Reconstruction of the Hellenistic Theatre
- Reconstruction of the Roman Theatre
- Reconstruction of the Theatre in late antiquity
- Ugolini and colleagues, 1931
- Plans of the theatre in the Hellenistic and Roman periods
- The so-called Goddess of Butrint
- Reconstruction of the sanctuary in the Roman period