# Army of archaeologists descends on Butrint



## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Jul 19, 2005)

> BUTRINT, Albania -- More than 2,000 years after Julius Caesar came here for provisions and decided to start a veterans colony, a new army has invaded -- a multinational force of archaeologists in what is perhaps the largest ongoing dig in the Mediterranean.
> 
> Led by Professor Richard Hodges of the University of East Anglia in England, 100 archaeologists from 19 nations, 60 Albanian undergraduates and dozens of local laborers are rotating in over the course of this summer's two-month digging season.
> 
> ...


 
You can read the whole article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700716.html?sub=AR

The Washington Post site sometimes asks for a password, so a visit to www.bugmenot.com may be required.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Jul 19, 2005)

It sounds interesting. 

 Shame there's no pictures in the article, but a search of Google Images shows a fascinating assortment of pictures from the area:
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=Butrint&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images


----------



## Stalker (Jul 19, 2005)

Aha, and the most stiking was the fact that in 2002 the archaeologists found a chess piece during their excavations of Butrint and now they suppose that Europeans played chess already in 6th century which means 500 years before the game was introduced to Europe, according to the official history. Here is the link to the article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2155916.stm


----------

