Ulpiana

Is it worth the trip?

If you are in Pristina, yes. By area it is the largest archaeological site in Kosovo (de.wikipedia), it is a short drive from the capital, and the park has been laid out for visitors. Go for the scale of the place and the story of a Roman town that became a bishop’s seat, not for standing buildings: the remains are low walls and foundations, and a first-time visitor should expect a field of ruins rather than a townscape.

Combine it with Gračanica (Graçanicë), 1.3 km to the east, where the lower walls of the monastery were built with gravestones from Ulpiana, their inscriptions still visible (en.wikipedia, it.wikipedia).

Getting there

The ruins lie about 1.3 km west of Gračanica, just north of the road to Laplje Selo (it.wikipedia). A free car park, run by the Archaeological Institute of Kosovo, is mapped about 200 m from the north gate; no bus stop is mapped nearby, so come by car or taxi (OpenStreetMap).

No official source publishes the park’s opening hours or whether entry is charged, and Kosovo’s tourism portal was offline for reconstruction on 30 September 2026. OpenStreetMap lists Monday to Friday 09.30–15.30 and Saturday 10.00–14.00, which is a useful guide but not a confirmation.

History

Finds of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age under the later temple show the place was settled before Rome (de.wikipedia), and the town grew in the 1st century AD, possibly out of a Dardanian fortified settlement. It was made a municipium before 117 and was probably named after Trajan, Marcus Ulpius Traianus (en.wikipedia); de.wikipedia allows that the grant may have come under Hadrian. The ore deposits of its hinterland were probably the source of its wealth (de.wikipedia). In the second half of the 2nd century a classical Roman temple was built near the north gate, its marble platform 11.6 by 18.3 m (de.wikipedia).

The town peaked in the 3rd and 4th centuries, as an important political and economic centre in Dardania, and in the second half of the 4th century it became the seat of Dardania’s bishop. The Goths sacked it in 471 or 472 (accounts differ on the year), and an earthquake in 518 devastated it. Justinian rebuilt the town and renamed it Iustiniana Secunda; after the Slavs burned it in the early 7th century it fell into ruin, and its stone was carried off for other buildings (en.wikipedia).

Its location was lost until the 20th century. Road works in 1927 turned up ruins (de.wikipedia), and graves found in 1953 confirmed the location; the first excavations ran from 1954 to 1959 (en.wikipedia). During and after the Kosovo war the site was damaged and looted (de.wikipedia). The German Archaeological Institute and the Archaeological Institute of Kosovo excavated here between 2009 and 2012 (de.wikipedia), and in 2016 the town became a protected archaeological park of 161 hectares. In 2022 a 70 m basilica was found in the north-east of the site, with a floor mosaic, uncovered in 2023, recording that Justinian commissioned it (en.wikipedia).