Before Albania
The Illyrians held this coast and its mountains long before there was a country called Albania, trading and fighting with Greek colonies planted at Epidamnos, later Durrës, and at Apollonia, and with the Roman republic that eventually absorbed them. Queen Teuta's wars with Rome, the Via Egnatia driven across the Balkans, and the layered ruins of Butrint, inhabited from prehistory through Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian hands, are what survives of the millennia before the Albanian state.
Part of Albania
34 moments in this segment.
- - Copper Age figurines from Maliq. Small anthropomorphic cult figures excavated at Maliq near Korce, made between roughly 3700 and 3100 BC. The Maliq settlement is the key prehistoric site of the Albanian south-east.
- - Wine vessel from Apollonia, 575 BC. A ceramic wine vessel of about 575 BC from Apollonia, in the site museum. Apollonia was founded by Greek colonists from Corfu and Corinth around 600 BC and grew rich on trade with the Illyrian interior.
- - Banquet relief from Apollonia. A third-century BC relief showing a banquet scene, excavated at Apollonia and now in the National History Museum in Tirana. Apollonia, founded by Corinthian and Corcyraean settlers around 600 BC, was one of the great cities of the Illyrian coast.
- - The river Vjosa personified, from Apollonia. A third-century BC personification of the Vjosa, carved at Apollonia and now in Tirana. The river that the Greeks called the Aoos was already worshipped as a deity when the city stood on its plain.
- - Tombstone with an Illyrian name, Apollonia. A second-century BC tombstone from Apollonia carrying an Illyrian name, still kept at the site. Apollonia was a Greek colony where Illyrian and Greek populations lived alongside one another.
- - Bronze coin of King Gent. A coin of Gent, the Labeatan king who ruled from Shkodra and was defeated by Rome in 168 BC. His fall ended the independent Illyrian kingdom and brought the eastern Adriatic under Roman rule.
- - The mosaic of Mesaplik. The floor mosaic lifted from Mesaplik, in the hills behind Vlorë, displayed in the National History Museum in Tirana. Mosaic pavements of this kind mark the Christian basilicas that spread across the province in late antiquity.
- - Byzantine capital from Durrës. A carved Byzantine capital taken from Durrës, now in the lapidarium of the National Museum of Medieval Art in Korçë. Dyrrachium was the chief Byzantine city on the Adriatic and the western end of the Via Egnatia.
- - Half-moon earring from Shtish-Tufina. A crescent earring of the seventh or eighth century found at Shtish-Tufina near Tirana, in the Archaeological Museum. Finds like it fill the long gap between the Roman province and the first Albanian written record.
- - Koman-culture torque, Archaeological Museum of Tirana. A neck ring of the seventh or eighth century from Koman, in the Drin valley. The Koman finds document the population that lived on in the Albanian hills between late antiquity and the medieval principalities.
- - Glass bead necklace from Shurdhah. A glass necklace of the seventh or eighth century excavated at Shurdhah island near Shkodër, now in the Archaeological Museum of Tirana.
- - Drinking bowl from the Vrap treasure. A gold drinking bowl from the treasure found in 1902 in a field at Vrap, near Tirana, now in the Walters Art Museum. The hoard is usually linked to the Avars and speaks to the mixed world of the early medieval Balkans.
- - Byzantine mosaic from Mesopotam, Korce. A thirteenth-century Byzantine mosaic of fighting cocks, taken from the church of St Nicholas at Mesopotam and now in the National Museum of Medieval Art at Korce.
- - Andrea II Muzaka in the Kastoria church painting. A fourteenth-century wall painting showing Andrea II Muzaka in the church of St Athanasius of Mouzaki at Kastoria. The Muzaka were one of the great Albanian noble houses of the late Middle Ages, before the Ottoman advance.
- - Fresco of the prince Teodor Muzaka. A fifteenth-century fresco portrait of the Albanian prince Teodor Muzaka in the church of Saint Athanasius at Kastoria. The Muzaka were one of the great families who ruled parts of Albania before the Ottoman conquest.
- - Teuta of Illyria engraved in Italy. A Renaissance Italian engraving of Teuta, the Illyrian queen whose fleets provoked Rome into the first Illyrian war in 229 BC. Her name re-entered Albanian usage in the national revival.
- - Butrint painted by Edward Lear. Edward Lear painted the marshes and ruins of Butrint in 1861, years after the Albanian journeys that produced his travel writing. His pictures were the first images of the site many Europeans ever saw.
- - Venetian galleys defeat Robert Guiscard at Butrint. A nineteenth-century engraving of the Venetian victory over the Norman fleet of Robert Guiscard off Butrint in 1085. Control of the channel opposite Corfu decided who commanded the entrance to the Adriatic.
- - Italian archaeologists at work in Butrint. Istituto Luce newsreel footage of the Italian mission at Butrint under Luigi Ugolini, which uncovered the theatre and the Roman and Byzantine city around it. The digs also served as a display of Italian influence in Albania in the years before 1939.
- - Archaeologists at work at Butrint. Archaeologists working at Butrint in 2007. The site holds Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian layers on a single headland, and has been excavated more or less continuously since the 1920s.
- - Basilica at Ballsh. The ruined basilica at Ballsh, on the site of the ancient city of Byllis in southern Albania, photographed in 2008. Byllis had one of the largest groups of early Christian churches in the Balkans.
- - Excavating the Roman forum at Butrint. Footage from the 2012 excavation of the Roman forum at Butrint, cut as a trailer for the documentary made about the dig. The work is shown in progress on the site beside the Vivari channel.
- - The rediscovery of ancient Butrint. An Albanian docufiction retracing how the buried city of Butrint, near Sarandë, was found and read. Its Greek, Roman and Byzantine layers are now inscribed by UNESCO.
- - Kanina Castle above Vlorë. The walls of Kanina, the hill fortress that commands the bay of Vlorë. The site has been fortified since antiquity and was rebuilt in the Byzantine and Ottoman periods.
- - Model of an Illyrian lembus. A model of the light Illyrian warship known as the lembus, displayed in the Skanderbeg museum at Krujë. Fast oared craft of this type made the Illyrians of the southern Adriatic a naval power that Rome went to war to suppress.
- - Stone Age flint mine near Goranxi. A flint source worked in the Stone Age in the hills near Goranxi, above Gjirokaster, photographed in 2019. Flint from sites like this is among the oldest evidence of habitation in Albania.
- - Bronze Age display, National Historical Museum. The Bronze Age installation in the National Historical Museum in Tirana, photographed in 2019. The material comes from tumulus burials that link the territory of Albania to the wider Illyrian world.
- - Copy of the Tren rock art. A reproduction of the Late Bronze Age rock art from Tren, on Lake Prespa, in the National Historical Museum in Tirana. The figures are among the oldest images made in Albania.
- - Copy of the Lepenice rock art. A reproduction of the Neolithic engravings from Lepenice, displayed in the National History Museum in Tirana. The originals are among the oldest human marks left on Albanian ground.
- - Monument to Queen Teuta at the Kruje museum. A modern figure of Teuta at the museum in Kruje. Albania's national imagination reaches past Skanderbeg to the Illyrian rulers, and Teuta is the one most often given a face.
- - Bettany Hughes at Butrint. The historian Bettany Hughes walks the Roman city on the Vivari channel and then travels inland to mountain communities, setting the ruins beside the customs that still govern life in the highlands.
- - St Mary's monastery church at Dhermi. The historic monastery church of St Mary above Dhermi on the Albanian Riviera, with its graveyard, photographed in 2024. The Himara coast kept its Orthodox monasteries through the Ottoman centuries.
- - Rozafa fortress above Shkoder. Rozafa stands on the ridge where the Buna and Drin meet, an Illyrian stronghold rebuilt by Venice and the Ottomans. The legend of the woman walled into its foundations is one of the best known Albanian stories.
- - Buthrotum above the Vivari channel. A survey of Butrint, the ancient Buthrotum, whose occupation runs from the eighth and seventh centuries BC through Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Venetian phases. The site lies on Albania's southern coast between Lake Butrint and the sea.
