Archaeological site

Ancient Batiae was a colony of the Elians (7th century BC) near today's village of Rizovouni. It was fortified with a polygonal outer wall as well as internal walls, and built on a hill. Parts of the ancient walls and Roman additions still survive. Its inhabitants later moved to Kassope.

Ephyra, the most ancient city in Epirus, lies around 500 m north of the Nekromanteion. It was a Mycenean colony of the 14th-13th century BC, mentioned in the Homeric epics, and was later colonised by the Corinthians. A fairly ruined inner wall survives, and on its inner side two Iron Age children's burials were found.

Today's Kastri is ancient Pandosia, the most important 8th-century BC colony of the Elians and capital of the state of Kassopaia. Built on a hill dominating the whole area, the city was surrounded by walls of around 360 m, with a total length of about 1,640 m, reinforced by 22 orthogonal towers, and had a population of around 10,000.

Asprochaliko is a rock shelter in the Louros valley, 20 m above the level of today's riverbed, near Aghios Georgios (Kokkinopilos). Oriented to the south and measuring 22 x 3.5 m, its uniqueness lies in its use during both the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic by nomadic hunters — two of the three phases of the Palaeolithic period.

The walled city of the ancient Molossoi at Orraon was founded in the reign of Alketas (385-370 BC), king of the Molossians, or at the latest in the second quarter of the 4th century BC. It was destroyed by the Romans in 167 BC, rebuilt, and finally abandoned after 31 BC during the enforced colonisation of Nikopolis.

Kassope was built by the Thesprotian tribe of the Kassopaians before the mid-4th century BC, to protect the fertile plain from the Elian colonists. It stands on a plateau (approx. 550-650 m) on the north slopes of Mt Zalongo, and was the capital of Kassopaia, with large public buildings and many private residences at its 3rd-century BC heyday. It was surrounded by a polygonal wall about 3.5 m thick.

The Nekromanteion (or Nekyomanteion) of Acheron, the Oracle of the Dead, was the most famous in the ancient Greek world. Archaeological finds — Mycenean shards and a bronze, Mycenean-style sword — indicate that worship of the gods of the Underworld was carried out here from the 14th-13th century BC. The oracle reached its acme in the late 4th and the 3rd-2nd centuries BC, and was destroyed by fire by the Romans in 167 BC.

Nikopolis was built on the Preveza peninsula by Octavian (Augustus) after his victory at the naval battle of Actium against Antony and Cleopatra (31 BC). It was the first Roman colony in Greece, and its first inhabitants were neighbouring peoples forcibly merged from the Epirot cities, Aitoloakarnania and Lefkada.