Saranda (ancient Onchesmos)

Like Butrint, Saranda is associated with the myth of the Trojan Aeneas and is said to have been named after his father Anchises. Today few visible remains of the ancient town survive.

The city walls are thought to date to the reign of Emperor Anastasius (491-518). They encompassed an area of 5 hectares and were punctuated by 16 towers and polygonal bastions. Despite Edward Lear’s drawings of the mid 19th century showing the western walls virtually intact, today only short stretches survive. To date, only one gateway has been identified. On the northern side a low outer wall, a proitechisma, was constructed to re-enforce the circuit and to elevate the prestige of the entrance to the city. The modern shore-line now marks the line of the south wall of the city. The remains of an arch belonging to a late Roman structure can be seen on the seashore.

The Roman town appears to have been constructed on a number of terraces stepping down to the shoreline; these terraces are still reflected in the topography of the modern town. Excavations in Saranda have brought to light many Roman and early Byzantine buildings, inside and outside the city wall. Two buildings with fine mosaic floors have been preserved at the centre of the modern town; other mosaic pavements are on display in the museum.

The most fascinating – and best preserved – structure of later Roman Onchesmos is undoubtedly the c. 6th-century AD synagogue/basilica. The main prayer hall is paved with a large and colourful mosaic featuring hieratic designs with affronted animals as well as purely ornamental panels. A somewhat smaller room to the north was decorated with a series of panels and included the depiction of a menorah. A number of other rooms may have functioned as the meeting rooms, classrooms and storage spaces required for a working community. To the north of the prayer hall, two oddly shaped tanks and a pair of cisterns to supply water have been interpreted as the ritual baths (miqva’ot) that would be needed in the synagogue.

The complex was later altered, and in a final phase the structure seems to have been converted into a Christian church. As at the Basilica on the Vrina Plain a mosaic dedicatory inscription was added: “+ Having prayed, I started, Lord; pray its completion made a work most beautiful to the sight”. The whole series of rooms seems to have been destroyed by fire at the end of the 6th century.

The site remains unique as the only identified ancient synagogue in Albania, though the existence of at least one other, in Durrës, is known from a tombstone.

Like the lower parts of Butrint, much of Saranda appears to have been abandoned by the early 7th century, but the synagogue/basilica may have remained a cult site, perhaps attracting dwellings around it, off and on over the subsequent centuries.

 

• The region and beyond
• Saranda
• Church of the Forty Martyrs
• QTVR: View from Forty Martyrs
• Phoenicê
• Mesopotam
• QTVR: Mesopotam
• Gjirokastra
• QTVR: Zekate House
• The Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Office

Ali Pasha’s castle at Likurs
On the hill south of Saranda are the remains of an Ottoman castle.
Built around 1662 it was substantially enlarged by Ali Pasha of Tepelena in the early 19th century.
Today a restaurant is situated in the restored castle but its formidable entrance and corner towers can still be discerned. In 1878 the villagers of Likurs rebelled against the Ottoman authorities; when no assistance arrived from Greece, they fled and abandoned the site.
From here the views over Saranda, Phoenicê, Lake Butrint and the Straits of Corfu are truly spectacular.