Archeologist Dhimiter Condi, who leads the expedition in Antigone park, says that new buildings and items have been discovered in excavations carried out this year.
TIRANA, Nov. 12 – New discoveries made in the ancient archeological park of Antigone, situated some 15 kilometers from the southern UNESCO World Heritage town of Gjirokastra are creating the necessary infrastructure to open a museum in this park. Archeologist Dhimiter Condi, who leads the expedition in Antigone park, tells VoA in the local Albanian service that new buildings and items have been discovered in excavations carried out this year. Condi says Antigone, which dates back to the third century B.C still has a lot to discover as only 10 percent of its treasure has come to light. “We discovered new urban elements on the organization of buildings. We discovered eights buildings which served as shops and workshops which reveals Antigone as important economic, trade, crafts centre,” he says.
Engjell Serjani, the director of the Antigone park, says the collection of the discovered items and its display in a museum would increase the number of tourists to Antigone park.
“This year’s excavations have made access to the Antigone park easier and visitors can watch traces of life in Antigone. The discoveries made in Antigone are sufficient to establish a museum with all standards of an archeological museum,” he says.
Archeologists have earlier discovered a figurine, a promenade and a stone mill in Antigone.
The ancient town of Antigone is one of the few archeological sites where excavations have been carried out by only Albanian expedition teams.
A new 8-km road built a couple of years ago has made access to the archeological park of Antigone much easier for tourists and put Antigone on the agenda of tourists who visit Gjirokastra and southern Albania.
Excavations conducted by Albanian archaeologists near the modern village of Saraqinishte, mainly in the 1960s-1980s, on the hill of Jerme, on the east side of the Drinos valley, led to the identification of the fortified city with that of Antigonea. The identification is based on the discovery of fourteen bronze tesserae with the inscription Antigoneon, in one of the houses of the Hellenistic period.
The ancient literary sources do not mention the circumstances of Antigonea’s founding or the reason behind its name. The various opinions range from Antigonos Gonatas, King of Macedonia being its founder to the most persuasive of all opinions that Pyrrhus, the Molossian king built the city in 296 B.C., in honor of his wife Antigone.
Antigonea lies on a hill about 600 meters above sea level and the wall circuit is estimated to have had a length of ca. four kilometers, covering 35 hectares. The Agora of the city has been excavated and a Stoa, 59 meters long and 9 m wide has been brought to light. Coins from various city states have been found in excavations, arriving from Korkyra (modern Corfu), Apollonia, Dyrrachium, Oricum, Ambracia but also the Epirote League, most of them made of bronze and few in silver.
