How on earth do you get the students up at 5am? That, rather than the archaeology, is the question that preoccupies my colleagues at the American University of Rome when I mention the Butrint Field School in Albania. Students are not generally known for their eagerness to rise at the crack of dawn and those […]

Today the Forty Saints sits discreetly above the crowded bay of Saranda (Hagioi Saranta), in southern Albania, overshadowed by telephone aerials. Enter the arcing harbour and your eye is drawn to a melée of small boys plunging into the water, little sun-tanned minxes in an otherwise sleepy, almost dreamy, tourist town. Saranda’s ancient history, when […]

Richard Hodges sends his regular archaeological news, this time from Cape Styllo, a ‘no-man’s land’ between Greece and Albania

Richard Hodges sends news from Lake Prespa

Over the years there have been several magic moments during my digging career. Trowelling down to reveal my first mosaic in a Wiltshire Roman villa was possibly the first; peeling back the dirt to expose a brightly painted ninth-century abbot in a crypt at San Vincenzo al Volturno was simply breath-taking. Now I have another […]

Richard Hodges looks at the Greco-Roman city of Apollonia