INSCRIPTIONS
The rock inscriptions of Grama Bay
Over many centuries, people who put in at Grama cut words into its rock: names, prayers and short notes in Greek and Latin, from antiquity to the Middle Ages and later. This page sets out what a published field survey and Albania's protected-areas and tourism agencies say about them; the sources are listed at the end.
What are the Grama inscriptions?
They are texts cut into the rock of the bay by the people who stopped there, among them sailors and quarry workers. A study published in 2007 dates the oldest to the 3rd century BC and follows the practice down to modern times, so the rock holds writing from many different centuries.
The study's authors also point out that the Grama texts resemble the inscriptions found in caves on the coast of southern Italy.
Prayers to the Dioscuri
The ancient Greek texts were carved by sailors in difficulty. The 2007 study in the Revue des Études Grecques describes them as invocations of the Dioscuri, the twins Castor and Pollux, made by the writers on behalf of their relatives.
Medieval prayers and an emperor in 1369
The writing went on after antiquity. The medieval inscriptions recorded by the 2005 survey are prayers asking the Lord to help his servant, and one of them mentions that the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaiologos passed by in 1369.
How many are there?
There is no single agreed figure. The Franco-Albanian survey of August 2005 documented more than a hundred inscriptions. Albania's National Tourism Agency, on its Albanian-language page about the bay, says that over 1,500 writings have been registered, the oldest of them Greek and dating from the last centuries before Christ.
Because the two figures are so far apart, this page gives both, each with its source, and adds no total of its own.
Who recorded them
Visitors noted the Grama texts long before modern archaeology, and a joint team surveyed them in 2005. The results were published by Hajdari, Reboton, Shpuza and Cabanes in the Revue des Études Grecques, volume 120 (2007), pages 353–394, which lists these records:
- In 1434, Cyriac of Ancona
- In 1861, H. Daumet
- In 1900, C. Patsch
- From 16 to 22 August 2005, a Franco-Albanian field survey with the Albanian Institute of Archaeology, for the Corpus des inscriptions grecques d'Illyrie méridionale et d'Épire
A quarry and a refuge from storms
According to the protected-areas agency, the marks were made by two groups of people: sailors whose ships sheltered in the bay from storms at sea, and the workers of the quarry that operated here in antiquity. Both cut their names and other notes into the rock while they were at Grama.
The bay and its cave are protected together as a natural monument. The agency describes the site's value as scientific, in geomorphology, history and archaeology, and as educational, cultural and touristic.
Seeing them with care
At Grama, the inscriptions visitors see are on the rock by the beach restaurant. Look at them and photograph them, but never touch, scratch or add marks: they belong to a protected natural monument, and every new scratch damages a record that has lasted for centuries.
Triton's day trip spends about two and a half hours in the bay. The guide on board explains each stop in English, Albanian or Italian; this site does not promise a guided visit to the inscriptions themselves.