Discovery of 'Lost City' in Albania Thrills Archaeologists

Local inhabitants thought it was just a small, grassy hill.

However, a joint team of Polish and Albanian archaeologists now think they may have discovered the lost city of Bassania, which the Roman writer Livy described as the site of a battle between the Romans and the last king of Illyria.

A clue to the importance of the discovery is that the team uncovered what looks like a surprisingly large town with defensive walls around three meters thick and built in a Hellenistic style.

These thick walls also surrounded a town covering about 20 hectares of land, implying a very large settlement.

According to Professor Piotr Dyczek, of the University of Warsaw, the discovered town or city is "huge", as he told Science Poland.

Saimir Shpuza, an Albanian archaeologist and an Associated Professor, told Gazeta Shqiptare that the mission had been working in the area since 2016, aiming to map all the archaeological sites near the northern city of Shkodra.

He said the site looked uninteresting at first glance. Now, he added, the discovery was evidently large, and also very promising.

This is because abandoned underground cities often reveal much better preserved structures than those above ground, which have been rebuilt continuously over the centuries.

"The abandonment of the town during the Roman era gives us hope that it is very well preserved," Shpuza said.

Along with its thick, fortified walls, the archaeologists have also uncovered ceramics and iron objects that could help to exactly date the settlement.

"It is too early to state for sure, but the town seem to have flourished from about the 2nd to the 4th Century BC, and been abandoned gradually after the fall of the Illyrian kingdom," Shpuza said.

Kole Shabeni, a...