North of Butrint

North of Butrint, at the crest of the Ksamili Peninsula, the monastery and church of Shën Gjergi (St. George) is located. Situated at the very summit of the hill, the monastery affords commanding views over Lake Butrint and the Straits of Corfu. Wall paintings of the late 18th to early 19th century can still be seen in the church.

The crest of the hill is also the location of the so-called Dema Wall, a vast 9.6 m wide wall traversing the peninsula from Lake Butrint to the Straits of Corfu. The wall, which has been dated to the 5th century BC, has variously been interpreted as the northern boundary of the territory annexed by the Corcyrans (Corfiots) at the time of the Peloponnesian War, or as the northern boundary of the koinon centred at Butrint of the Prasaebean tribes – the southern limit may have been defined by the settlement at Çuka e Aitoit.

Halfway between Butrint and Saranda, at the modern village of Çuka, is a well-preserved Hellenistic fortified villa. An enclosure wall some 40 m square encloses ranges of rooms, while in the centre is a tower-like structure. The latter originally had an upper storey. The villa is only one of a series of fortified sites known in this region. The most substantial surviving example is at Malathrea south of Butrint, but a fortified farm can also be found at the suburb of Metoq near Saranda.

Here a new church is partly built over its western enclosure wall; as at Çuka it appears to have had a central tower. For a long time this complex was thought to be the ruins of a temple, but it is clearly another fortified farmstead. Most of these date to the 4th-3rd centuries BC and clearly formed a significant element of the pre-Roman landscape of the region. Larger fortified sites of a more military nature can be found at points controlling the mountain passes throughout the Butrint area, like at the spectacular, if difficult to reach, site at Vagalat.