Elbasan is a town in central Albania. Albania’s third largest city is located on the Shkumbin River in the district of Elbasan. The current name derives from the Turkish il-basan (“the fortress”). In August 2010, archaeologists discovered two Illyrian graves near the castle walls of Elbasan.

In the second century B. C. a trading post called Mansio Scampa developed near the present-day Elbasan, close to a crossroads of two arms of an important Roman road, the Via Egnatia. Via Egnatia connected the Adriatic coast with Byzantium. It was one of the most important routes of the Roman Empire. In the third to fourth century A. D. this place had developed into a rather big city which was protected by a Roman fortress with towers.

It took part in the spreading of Christianity along the Via and had already in the fifth century a bishop, a cathedral and basilicas. In 2014, ruins of an early Christian basilica from the 5th or 6th century AD were found.

The place seems to have been abandoned until the Ottoman army built a military camp there, which was followed in 1466 by urban reconstruction under Sultan Mehmet II, who built a massive four-sided castle with a deep moat and three towers. He had built the castle because of an ongoing conflict between Ottomans and Albanians and to fight against Skanderbeg, the National Hero of the Albanians.

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