Antigoneia (Chaonia)
Antigoneia ( Greek Αντιγόνεια ; Albanian Antigoneja or Antigona ) was an ancient city in the Epirotian landscape of Chaonia and is now an archaeological excavation site in southern Albania . It is located on the slope of the Lunxhëria Mountain near the village of Saraqinishta at an altitude of around 600 meters high above the valley of the Drinos River and the city of Gjirokastra on the other side of the river , which is a little more than six kilometers away as the crow flies.
The place was already settled by the Illyrians when the Epirotic king Pyrrhus (319-272 BC) founded the city and named it after his lover, Antigone . After the Roman conquest in 167 BC. The city was burned down and never rebuilt.
The historical ruins are an archaeological park under the protection of the government of Albania. The excavated ruins include the remains of the Acropolis , the four-kilometer-long city wall, buildings of the agora , basilicas and some residential houses.
literature
- Neritan Ceka : Antigoneia - Qyteti i dashurisë së parë . Migjeni, Tirana 2009, ISBN 978-99956-718-6-0 .
- Neritan Ceka: The Illyrians and the Ancient World . In: Albania. Treasures from the land of the Skipetars . Zabern, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-8053-0978-3 , p. 33 ff .
- Gustav Hirschfeld : Antigoneia 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2404 f.
- Daniel Strauch: Antigoneia [4]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 1, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01471-1 .
Web links
- Antigonea - tourist information of the Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organization (English)
- Site of the archaeological park Antigonea (English)
Coordinates: 40 ° 5 ' N , 20 ° 13' E