The excavations of 2008 at the Vrina Plain revealed a medieval site, once occupied by a villa complex of the Roman and Late Antique period, which comprised also a bathhouse and a mausoleum.
A hiatus of some centuries in the spaces of the former Roman villa seems to have ended in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. Substantial levels of blackish soil, as elsewhere in the Vrina Plain, denote medieval activity. These layers, (5, 53) seem to represent traces from an as yet unidentified settlement of some considerable status.
The ceramics recovered from, these levels included imported vessels of incised sgraffito, fine sgraffito, painted fine sgraffito, slip, green and brown painted as well a considerable assemblage of coarse wares. Also, the excavations revealed some high-status metalwork, a coin of Alexius I of 1110-1118, and a Denarius of the Republic of Lucca.
Above these levels a blackish soil strata (4) containing rubble originating from the Roman mausoleum and ceramics of fourteenth century were discovered. Differently from what has been assumed in the previous excavations, the results of this year showed not only the habitat continuity at this side of the Vrina Plain, but also the final destruction of the mausoleum and the bathhouse during the medieval time.
The last phase of activity represents the build up of alluvium from the fourteenth century onwards plus the creation of the state farm in the 1960s. This is shown by the undisturbed and disturbed levels of alluvial oil (2, 1) plus two rough features formed by a pan-busting operation which had cut into and damaged the eastern end of the mausoleum.
The identification and dating at this point is of some considerable importance as the twelfth century in Butrint is otherwise rather unrepresented in terms of its archaeology, and this discovery is one of the few known sites of the last years of Byzantine rule prior to the disaster of the fourth crusade in 1204.