Angelokastro is one of the most important fortified complexes on Corfu. Its very strategic, impregnable position at the north-west extremity of the island, commanding a view of almost the entire south Adriatic, made it very important for the islands fortunes and development for many centuries. There are reliable indications such as two Early Christian closure slabs, which survive at the summit, and excavational data unearthed when the castle was being developed in 1999 ? that the site may already have been fortified and occupied for the first time in the Early Byzantine period (5th-6th c.). Although there is no supporting evidence in the sources, when one considers the historical context of the Byzantine state in the 11th and 12th centuries, it seems reasonable to suppose that the Komnenian emperors had something to do with the site; especially since the Byzantine dominations in southern Italy were irretrievably lost in 1071, automatically making Corfu the frontier between the Byzantine state and its dangerous foes to the west.