Bashtovë Fortress: A Medieval River and Coastal Trading Stronghold in Albania
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Albania
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Byzantine, Ottoman, Venetian
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page7 sections
History
Bashtovë Fortress is a ruined lowland fortress in Albania, near the lower Shkumbin River and its outlet into the Adriatic Sea. Its origins are disputed: one interpretation places its construction under the Byzantine Empire, the eastern Roman Empire, in the sixth century, while another dates the main foundation to approximately 1467–1478, when Venice held trading interests and territories along parts of the eastern Adriatic and Balkan coast. The fortress controlled the lower river and probably served an associated point for transferring and storing grain.
The river harbor and disputed origins
During the medieval period, the surrounding region functioned as a commercial harbor and a center of large-scale grain cultivation and export. The transfer point of Vrego was mentioned in the early fourteenth century, and a village of thirteen houses was said to have stood there in the early fifteenth century. The coast and the river were probably closer to the fortress when it was built, helping explain its position in the estuary plain.
Gjerak Karaiskaj assigned the fortress to the second half of the fifteenth century, approximately 1467–1478, and attributed its construction to the Venetians, who reused material from earlier structures at the site. Alain Ducellier instead proposed that the first fortress was built in the sixth century during the Justinian dynasty, the ruling house associated with Emperor Justinian I. Johann Georg von Hahn also regarded Bashtovë as Byzantine during his travels in Albania in the mid-nineteenth century. Arabic-script inscriptions and worked stones in Byzantine and ancient styles have contributed to the continuing debate over its origin.
Ottoman use and later changes
The fortress first appeared in writing on a map of 1521, where it was named Pashtove and shown with a mosque beside the entrance. Bashtovë may also have been the place called Basti in the sixteenth-century chronicles of the Muzaka family. The Ottomans used the fortress to protect coastal trade after expanding into Albania. In 1780, Bashtovë was declared a free port to encourage commerce.
Evliya Çelebi, a seventeenth-century Ottoman traveller and writer, reported that floods of the Shkumbin had damaged the walls. He attributed the fortress to Venetian construction during the Ottoman conquest of northern Albania from Elbasan. The western part belongs to a second building phase in the eighteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, the southwest tower had collapsed.
Modern protection and damage
Albania placed Bashtovë Fortress on its UNESCO World Heritage tentative list in 2017. This is a preliminary national nomination status rather than inscription on the World Heritage List. The nomination identifies Bashtovë as the region’s only Venetian fortress not built over earlier fortifications, although the proposed sixth-century predecessor remains part of the dating dispute. The fortress suffered substantial damage in the November 2019 earthquake, and rehabilitation was proposed through the European Union’s EU4Culture program in 2020.
Remains
Bashtovë Fortress stands on flat, fertile ground in the Shkumbin estuary plain, within a broad river bend a few hundred metres from the river’s northern bank and less than four kilometres from the Adriatic coast. The Myzeqe plain extends south of the river. The fortress has an approximately rectangular plan oriented north–south, enclosing an interior of roughly 60 by 90 metres. Its outline narrows slightly toward the northwest, where the northeast wall bends gently at its midpoint.
Walls, towers, and entrances
The walls rise to approximately nine metres and use local sandstone and conglomerate assembled through several construction techniques. Much of the east and south walls, most of the north wall, and the towers incorporated into those sides belong to the Venetian phase. The west wall and a ten-metre section of the north wall were rebuilt by the Ottomans. Three entrances served the fortress, with the main entrance in the northwest wall. Archaeological traces of the entrances survive, while the southern side faces the river channel.
Round towers approximately twelve metres high stand at the north and east corners. Rectangular towers formerly occupied the other corners and the middle of the walls. They were higher than the round towers but survive poorly or not at all, and the southwest tower had already collapsed by the mid-nineteenth century. Loopholes occur in the battlements and in lower sections of the walls. Most of the masonry remains standing and comparatively well preserved, with many battlements still visible. Small areas at the south and west corners are lost, while ivy, shrubs, and trees partly cover the exterior.
Religious and archaeological remains
A mosque stood beside the entrance when the fortress appeared on the 1521 map, and remains of an Ottoman mosque survive within the site. To the left of the main northwest entrance was an ancient cemetery. It yielded a carved stone from the Byzantine period and numerous column fragments that probably served as ancient burial markers. One column remains standing vertically in the ground. Hellenistic pottery was found approximately one kilometre east of Bashtovë.
