The ancient city of Gitana - Georgia Pliakou

Georgia Pliakou - “The ancient city of Gitana. Revealing an urban
and political center in Thesprotia, Northwestern Greece”
The ancient city of Gitana is the largest and most well-known archaeological site in Thesprotia (Northwestern Greece). It was founded around the middle of the 4th century B.C. and was abandoned in the last decades of the 1st century B.C. Apart from its organized urban plan and public buildings such as the Prytaneion and the Theater, further evidence points to the city as the political center of the Thesprotians, who were probably organized into a Koinon (League). The discovery of inscriptions mentioning the name of a prostates (magistrate) along with the archive of approximately 3,000 clay sealings for validating documents, as well as the numerous names engraved on the hedolia (seats) of the theater denoting acts of slave manumission, testify to the significance of the city.
Georgia Pliakou, D.Phil. (2007, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), is Head of the Department of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and Museums and Deputy Director at the Ephorate of Antiquities of Thesprotia (Hellenic Ministry of Culture). She conducted and supervised numerous excavations in the regions of ancient Ambracia, Lefkas, Ioannina, and Thesprotia, and was Head of the Committee for the supervision of the project “Restoration and preservation works at the ancient theater of Gitana,” carried out in the framework of the Regional Operational Program “Epirus 2014-2020." She is the author of “Το λεκανοπέδιο των Ιωαννίνων και η ευρύτερη περιοχή της Μολοσσίας στην κεντρική Ήπειρο. Αρχαιολογικά κατάλοιπα, οικιστική οργάνωση και οικονομία” (Diss. Thessaloniki 2007) and a number of articles on archaeological topography, settlement patterns, and ceramics from several Epirote sites.