Butrint is really several cities, each piled one on top of the last.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

UNESCO, which has designated Butrint a World Heritage site, turned the sparsely inhabited land around it into a national park.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

But it is also being used as a training base by the Butrint Foundation, keen to teach young Albanians the pragmatic, hands-on traditions of British archaeology.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

If Butrint and its surrounding region can grow prosperous but not polluted, the result could be a showpiece for using conservation and culture as engines for development.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

How well Butrint survives tourist pressure will depend on collaboration between Richard Hodges, the foundation's scientific director and principal fund-raiser, and Auron Tare, head of the newly created national park.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

However, Butrint revived: not just once, but several times.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

It has pleased Albanian archaeologists with a plan to dredge the silting channel that feeds fresh water into Lake Butrint, a wildlife haven, and it has pleased local villagers by persuading a Japanese philanthropist to build a new school.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

They did so under the auspices of the Butrint Foundation, set up in 1993 by two British grandees: Lord Rothschild, a banker whose villa on the shores of Corfu looks across to Butrint, and Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, a supermarket magnate.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology

The foundation, directed by Sir Patrick Fairweather, a former British ambassador to Albania and to Italy, and financed mainly by grants from David Packard, heir to America's Hewlett-Packard fortune, has been leading the attempt to ensure that Butrint's development is adequately financed and sensitively handled.

ECONOMIST: Mediterranean archaeology