Venosa

A town in southern Italy that has a Lower Palaeolithic site with a hand axe or Acheulian level overlying one with abundant sidescapers (evolved Clactonian, Tayacian or Charentian?). Originally a settlement of the Lucanians (an ancient Italic tribe), it was taken by the Romans after the Samnite Wa...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Venosa

Agade

An ancient city of southern Mesopotamia, founded by Sargon (2334-2279 BC) as his capital. Its location is uncertain.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Agade

Karmir-Blur

Urartian city near modern Erevan, Armenia, with a citadel and walled residential area, mainly occupied in the 7th century BC. There were pre-Urartian graves and Hellenistic occupation. It may have replaced Erebuni as the Urartian seat in the 8th century.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Karmir-Blur

Didyma

A temple site in Miletus, Turkey, dating to the 8th century BC. The reconstructed Hellenistic temple included a naiskos inside the adyton.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Didyma

Tanagra

Site in Boeotia, Greece, where a large cache of finely worked, cast terra-cotta figurines were found in Hellenistic period cemeteries spanning the period from c 340-150 BC. There are also Mycenaean chamber tombs in the area. The nearly circular hill of the ancient ruined city was first occupied b...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Tanagra

Mylasa

A town in Asia Minor possibly founded by Mausolus, ruler of Caria (377-353 BC). Hellenistic and Roman site with Corinthian-style Temple of Zeus, Temple of Augustus and Rome, and ceremonial arch.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Mylasa

Sarmizegethusa

Late Iron Age town of eastern Romania, seat of the Dacian state founded by Burebistas in the 1st century BC. A hilltop citadel is next to a sanctuary area with several shrines and temples. Bronze and iron products and pottery were made in an industrial area. In 101, Trajan led an invasion of Daci...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Sarmizegethusa

Persepolis

The capital of the Achaemenid empire, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, founded by Darius shortly after 518 BC; it was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. The ceremonial palace was built by teams of workers and craftspeople from all parts of the empire. It replaced the earlier capital, Pas...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Persepolis

Antioch

An ancient city of Phrygia near the Orontes River and modern Yalvaç in Turkey. It was founded in 300 BC by Seleucus I (c 358-281 BC) after the death of Alexander the Great and was one of the two capitals of the Parthian Empire. It became a Roman city in 64 BC at the hands of Pompey and served as ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Antioch

Sounion

Promontory in Attica, Greece, on which was the temple of Poseidon, dated to the mid-5th century BC. This classical sanctuary site probably goes back to the 7th-8th century BC, and it was traditionally popular as a refuge with runaway slaves. It was fortified in 413 BC by a substantial wall enclos...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Sounion

Sparta

A small town in the central Peloponnese, Greece, which in the Classical period created the Peloponnesian League and organized the military forces that broke the Athenian empire and subjugated Athens in 404 BC. It was reputedly founded in the 9th century BC, later the capital of the Laconia distri...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Sparta

Naples

Naples was founded about 600 BC as Neapolis ("New City") by Greek settlers close to the more ancient Palaepolis. Both towns were extensions of Greek colonies on the nearby island of Pithecusa (now Ischia) and at Cumae on the adjacent mainland. The principal Greek city of Campania southern Italy i...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Naples

Pithekoussai

A volcanic island off the northern part of the Bay of Naples, and site of arguably the earliest Greek colony in the western Mediterranean. Lying on sea trade routes to Italy, and especially Etruria, the colony was established by Euboean Greeks from Chalcis and Eretria, c 775-750 BC. The Monte Vic...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Pithekoussai

Byblos

An ancient seaport on the Mediterranean coast just north of Beirut, Lebanon and one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. Papyrus received its early Greek name (byblos, byblinos) from its being exported to the Aegean through Byblos. The English word Bible is derived from byblos...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Byblos

Mohenjo-Daro

One of the two capitals of the Indus civilization, the best known of the Mature Harappan cities, located in the Sind region on the right bank of the Indus in Pakistan. Radiocarbon dates and corroboration with Mesopotamian data date the capital to about 3000-1700 BC. The city, covering approximate...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Mohenjo-Daro

Babylonia

An ancient region occupying southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (southern Iraq from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf), whose capital was Babylon for many centuries. The term Babylonia also refers to the culture that developed in the area from its original settlement c 4000 BC ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Regions, Place Names

Babylonia

Gordium

The capital of the Phrygians in the 8th century BC, on the bank of the Sakarya River in central Anatolia (now Turkey). Gordion was surrounded by a massive mud-brick wall and a monumental gateway and was dominated by about 10 important buildings built on the megaron plan, and a palace complex. Out...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Gordium

Damascus

A rich oasis city at the inland end of a pass in Syria and the modern capital of Syria. Damascus was occupied by the 3rd millennium BC, but the settlements of the prehistoric, biblical and Roman periods underlie the modern and medieval city and are therefore not readily available for excavation. ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Damascus

Mildenhall

A town in Suffolk, England, famous for the treasure of silver comprising the household silver of a wealthy Roman family near the remains of a 4th-century Roman building. The silver was richly decorated with figured reliefs and the 34 pieces include a large dish depicting the head of Oceanus, ring...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Mildenhall

Tiryns

A fortified citadel of the Mycenaeans in the Argolid, Greece, an important Bronze Age center. The palace of its rulers, a megaron opening onto a porticoed court, was decorated with frescoes after the style of the Minoans. They include one of the best surviving representations of the bull-leaping ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Tiryns

Beni Hassan

A Middle Kingdom archaeological site, on the eastern bank of the Nile, Egypt, about 150 miles south of Cairo. The site is known for its rock-cut tombs of the 11th- and 12th-dynasty (2125-1795 BC) officials of the 16th Upper Egyptian (Oryx) nome, or province. Some of the 39 tombs are painted with ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Beni Hassan

Babylon

One of the most famous cities of antiquity, the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium BC and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. It was located about 80 km south of Baghdad, Iraq on the Eu...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Babylon

Ayutthaya

A town in south-central Thailand founded c 1350 by Ramathibodi I in his attempt to unify the countries of Siam and Lopburi. It became the capital of the powerful Thai kingdom of the same name for more than 400 years until its destruction by invading Myanmar in 1767. Much architecture, art, and li...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Ayutthaya

Kom Ombo

The site of a unique double temple of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, which is dedicated to Sebek (Suchos), the crocodile god, and to Horus, the falcon-headed god. Ombos was important for its strategic location, commanding both the Nile River and the routes from Nubia northward to the Nile River...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Kom Ombo

Larsa

The most important city of southern Mesopotamia during the early Old Babylonian period, one of the city-states of Sumer. It was located on the Euphrates River between Ur and Babylon, southeast of Uruk, southern Iraq. Archaeological remains are found in a group of tells, though most of its history...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Larsa