Margariti: Antigonea is getting ready for the tourist season

The archaeological park of Antigone can be considered one of the most interesting tourist spots in the Gjirokastra area. The archaeological park is getting ready for the tourist season and the Minister of Culture Elva Margariti says that these days the employees of the Regional Directorate of Cultural Heritage Gjirokastër are carrying out various works. "Antigonea is getting ready for the tourist season. DRTK Gjirokastër employees are working to welcome visitors. During this week, work was done on the systematization of the church walls of the century. IX in the Agora; the promenade, the main road and the secondary ones of the archaeological park", says the Minister of Culture Margariti on social networks where she shared some photos of the work being done in this park at this time. Antigonea is one of the largest ancient cities of the territory of Albania and the most important ancient settlement of the Drinos valley. The settlement within the fortification walls of the c. III has an area of ??45 ha, while the territory of the archaeological park is over 90 ha. There were various hypotheses about the location of Antigone until the archaeological research of the 70s provided reliable evidence for this. The city got its name from Antigone, the first wife of King Pyrrhus. The city was fortified with powerful walls at the beginning of the century. III BC, while it is not excluded that there was an earlier settlement in that place, later renamed by Pyrrhus. The city dominated the valley of Drinos, which was a rich rural area, and to protect this entire territory there were also other peripheral fortresses: the Lekli fortress in the north, Labova in the east and Selo in the south. The perimeter of the fortification walls can be followed in full and begins to be noticed at the entrance to the park. To the right of the entrance, in the northern part of the city, there is a hill called "Acropolis".