Boghazköy

The site of the Hittite capital of Hattusas, excavated by Hugo Winckler in the early 20th century and which yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been oc...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Boghazköy

Harran

An ancient city of northern Mesopotamia mentioned in Hittite, Old Testament, and Assyrian texts, now a village in southeastern Turkey. The town was located on the road that ran from Nineveh to Carchemish. It is frequently mentioned in the Bible; Abraham's family settled there when they left Ur of...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Harran

Agordat

A town in western Eritrea, Ethiopia, with four village sites from around the 3rd millennium BC. Surface artifacts, such as stone maceheads and ground stone axes seem related to the Nubian C Group of the Nile Valley. Other artifacts suggest an early practice of food production that may have been p...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Agordat

Orchomenos

Important Bronze Age site in Boeotia, central Greece, home of the legendary King Minyas. Extensive remains of the Early and Middle Helladic periods survive, though the Mycenaean levels are badly eroded. A large frescoed Late Helladic structure is probably a palace, and to the east lies the tholos...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Orchomenos

Hou-Ma

An ancient city of China with extensive remains of an Eastern Chou city, possibly the site of Xintian, capital of the Chin state from 584-453 BC. Pollen analyses from western and southern Shansi reveal that several cereal plants were grown there as early as the 5th-3rd millennium BC. During the H...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Hou-Ma

Behbet El-Hagar

A town in the northern central Nile Delta which flourished in the 30th Dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic period (332-30 BC). The site is dominated by the remains of a large granite temple of Isis.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Behbet El-Hagar

Kition

An important Late Cypriot settlement in southern Cyprus, first occupied in the 13th century BC. The copper trade supported it until it was destroyed c 1200 BC, possibly by the Sea Peoples. In the 11th century BC, possibly because of an earthquake, it was abandoned but then recolonized by the Phoe...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Kition

Hattusas

The ancient name for Boghaz Köy, the capital of the Hittites, who established a powerful empire in Anatolia and northern Syria in the 2nd millennium BC.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Hattusas

Axum

A kingdom formed from at least the 1st century AD in southwestern Ethiopia which developed into an empire including northern Ethiopia, Sudan, and southern Arabia. It is also the name of a city there, in existence since the 3rd century AD which rose to be the center of the kingdom. The culture inc...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Nations

Axum

Sippar

Ancient city of Babylonia, southwest of Baghdad, Iraq, an ancient Sumerian city lying on a canal linking the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was an important religious and trading center in southern Mesopotamia. Sippar was subject to the 1st dynasty of Babylon, but little is known about the city bef...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Sippar

Isin

An ancient Mesopotamian city, probably the origin of a large mound near Ad-Diwaniyah, in southern Iraq. An independent dynasty was established at Isin about 2017 BC by Ishbi-Erra, who founded a line of Amorite rulers of whom the first five claimed authority over the city of Ur to the south. The f...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Isin

Alchi

A town in Ladakh, Tibet, where a number of nomads' tombs were discovered and excavated between 1900-1910 by A.H. Francke. Each tomb contained from 3-20 long-headed skulls many small handmade pottery vessels filled with bones and grave goods including bronze beads pendants bracelets and bronze ves...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Pottery, Ancient Cities, Place Names

Alchi

Troy

Ancient city in northwestern Anatolia (Turkey) that holds an enduring place in both literature (the "Iliad" "Odyssey" etc.) and archaeology. A large mound called Hisarlik (or Hissarlik) by the Turks holds the ruins - as discovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Between 1870-1890...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Troy

Ugarit

Important site of an ancient Syrian city, north of Latakia on the Syrian coast, occupied from an aceramic Early Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It was destroyed c 1200 BC; its fall coincided with the invasion of the Northern and Sea Peoples and earthquakes a...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Ugarit

Athens

Important classical Greek city-state with evidence for continuous occupation from the Late Neolithic, but because of its continuous occupation and the resulting disturbance of the earlier levels, its history is told from the time of the Mycenaeans in the Late Bronze Age. The citadel on the Acropo...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Athens

Sohar

The principal town of the Batina coast of Oman in the Sassanian and early Islamic periods, owing its wealth to maritime trade. In the 3rd century it became the center of the Sassanian enclave known as Mazun but did not become prominent until the 10th century, when Omani merchants went to China, t...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Sohar

Tayma

Iron Age city in Hejaz, Arabia. Nabonidus (reigned 555-539 BC) was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire and lived there for 10 years. There is a series of large walled compounds and a small mound in the center of town. There is a cultic area and carved scenes with an iconography derived fro...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Tayma

Shechem

Palestinian site and biblical city with its most important period of occupation in the Middle Bronze Age c 17th century BC, when it was given a great insloping wall of Cyclopean masonry. To the same period belongs a stone plaque bearing one of the earliest known alphabetic inscriptions. The town ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Shechem

Dacia

A Roman frontier province north of the Danube in the area of the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, in present-day western Romania, spanning c 106-270 AD. The Dacians were agricultural and worked their rich mines of gold, iron, and silver. As a people, they first lived south of the Danube and...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Dacia

Tarsus

Prehistoric settlement in coastal Cilicia, southeast Turkey (Anatolia), the site of the Mound of Gözlüküle (Gözlü Kale). It was occupied from the 5th-1st millennia BC with a sequence paralleling that of Mersin. This included a late Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Lat...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Tarsus

Polonnaruwa

A town in north-central Sri Lanka (Ceylon), that was an ancient Ceylonese capital. Polonnaruwa became the residence of Ceylon's kings in 368 AD and succeeded Anuradhapura as the capital in the 8th century when the latter was captured by Tamils. The most impressive surviving monuments belong to th...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Polonnaruwa

Delphi

An important sanctuary site in central Greece, where the Delphic oracle was located. Situated at the foot of Mount Parnassus, Delphi was thought (by the Greeks) to lie at the center of the earth. The setting has a striking backdrop of cliff-face, rock fissures, and springs. The sanctuary of Apoll...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Delphi

Qairawan

Important caravan city in north-central Tunisia on the east-west route between Egypt and the Maghreb. Founded in 670 on the site of the Byzantine fortress of Kamouinia, it has four major 9th-century structures: the Great Mosque, the Mosque of Three Doors, and two massive cisterns. The Great Mosqu...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Qairawan

Cairo

The capital of modern Egypt, which has more than 400 registered historical monuments - the largest number of any African or Middle Eastern city - dating from 130 AD. The ancient metropolis has stood for more than 1,000 years on the same site. The Pyramids of Giza stand at the southwestern edge of...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Cairo

Sardis

City in western Anatolia (near Izmir, Turkey), associated with Croesus and the Lydians, the capital city of Lydia. The Lydian city, of the 7th-6th centuries BC, had an acropolis and walled lower settlement. From about 560-546 BC, Sardis was ruled by Croesus, who was renowned for his great wealth ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Sardis