Qatna

A fortified city east of Homs in Syria with evidence of 3rd millennium BC occupation. The fortifications of free-standing glacis (bank) belong to the Middle Bronze Age in the early 2nd millennium BC and were probably constructed by the Hyksos.

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Qatna

Benin City

Capital and largest city of Edo state, Nigeria, which rose to prominence in the 13th century. A series of massive city wall, over 100 km in length, was constructed. The Portuguese first visited in 1485 and it was burned down and ransacked for nearly 2,500 of its famous bronzes in 1897 when the Br...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Benin City

Kurgus

Site in Nubia where Thutmose I (c 1493-1482 BC) and Thutmose III (1479-1426 BC) both carved inscriptions on boulders marking the southern frontier of Egypt. After Thutmose I destroyed the Karmah state, he inscribed a rock as a boundary marker, later confirmed by Thutmose III, near Kanisa-Kurgus, ...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Kurgus

Salamis, Greece

An island and town of Attikí, Greece, the site of the straits in which the Greeks won a decisive naval victory over the Persians in 480 BC. The invading forces of Xerxes and the Persians were beaten off. The city was occupied form the Bronze Age and chamber tombs of the Early Iron Age had remains...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Salamis, Greece

Syracuse

A Corinthian colony and principal port founded traditionally c 734 BC on the east coast of Sicily. The earliest occupation was on the island of Ortygia; later settlement was on the mainland in the Achradina area. Early Palaeolithic material occurs in the Great Harbor. Syracuse was the leader of G...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Syracuse

Corinth

An ancient city of Greece, located where the Peloponnese meets the isthmus that connects it to the Greek mainland. The city has an exceptionally high acropolis on Acronocorinth Hill and profited from having ports on both the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The site was occupied from before 3000 BC,...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Corinth

Gortyn

Ancient Greek city of western Crete, considered the most important city of Classical Greek and Roman Crete. Although unimportant in Minoan times, Gortyn displaced Phaestus as the dominant city in the Mesara. It shared or disputed control of the island with Knossos until the Roman annexation in 67...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Gortyn

Mycenae

The chief city of the Mycenaeans of Bronze Age Greece, overlooking the Plain of Argos (Argolid) in the eastern Peloponnese. Inhabited in the Early Helladic period, 2500-1900 BC, it was taken over c 1900 BC by Greek-speaking invaders. After existing as a minor Middle Helladic site, it rose to prom...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Mycenae

Ahichchatra

A large ancient city of northern India, near Bareilly in the Ganges plain that was occupied from the mid-1st millennium BC to c 1100 AD. The ramparts were built c. 500 BC and there are nine building levels up till its abandonment. Painted Grey Ware was the first pottery found; later there was Nor...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Ahichchatra

Pergamum

Pergamon, Capital of a Hellenistic kingdom of the same name in Anatolia (Turkey) dating to 283-133 BC. The site is fine example of Hellenistic town planning with buildings terraced up to the palace and the acropolis. There was monumental planning and design and sculpture in baroque style culminat...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Pergamum

Nineveh

Large walled city, a capital of the Assyrians from the end of the 8th century BC, located across the Tigris River from Mosul, Iraq. The site was occupied from the earliest times, with pottery from the Hassuna phase on. The site today consists of two main mounds, Kuyunjik (the citadel) and Nebi Yu...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Nineveh

Uruk

One of the greatest city-states of Sumer, northwest of Ur, which flourished at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. It is 250 km south of Bagdad, Iraq. Pottery dating from around 5000 BC has been found there, but the civilization is traditionally dated to c 3800-3100 BC. Uruk's rulers tried to...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Uruk

Tanis

Most important archaeological site in the northeastern Nile Delta of Egypt and capital of 14th nome of Lower Egypt in the Late Period (747-332 BC) and, at one time, of the entire country. There are massive mud-brick temple enclosure walls built by Ramesside and the 21st-Dynasty pharaohs. The site...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Tanis

Jericho

An important site in the Jordan Valley of Israel with a continuous sequence from the Natufian to the Late Bronze Age. Camping occupation of the Mesolithic c 9000 BC developed into the pre-pottery Neolithic c 8350-7350 BC when there was a walled town of mud-brick houses, which is amongst the earli...

archaeologsEnglishPlace Names, Ancient Cities

Jericho

Asmar, Tell

The ancient city of Eshnunna on the Diyala River of Iraq, inhabited from the Uruk to Old Babylonian period. Excavations here have provided the archaeological definition of the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods. In the early 2nd millennium BC, Tell Asmar was the center of the kingdom of Eshnunna.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Asmar, Tell

Cambodia

Neolithic peoples inhabited present-day Cambodia during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. Stone tools have been found in terraces of the Mekong River in possible association with tektites from a shower that fell c 600,000 to 700,000 years ago. In western Cambodia there is an important Hoabinhian sequ...

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Cambodia

Miletus

Greek settlement at the mouth of the Meander valley in Turkey (western Anatolia), inhabited from the 2nd millennium BC. By the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, it was an Ionian Greek city, colonizing Black Sea and Egyptian Delta areas in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Miletus played an importan...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Miletus

Aleppo

A city in northern Syria which stands on the site of an ancient, as yet unexcavated, city. On the route between the Euphrates and Orontes, the ancient site is mentioned in texts from the 2nd millennium onwards as the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad in the 18th century BC. It subsequentl...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Aleppo

Tyre

Site on the coast of Lebanon of a chief city of the Phoenicians from c 2000 BC. It occupied a small island off the coast with two harbors. It was the parent city of Carthage and flourished until its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 574/572 BC after a long siege. Between 538-332 it was ruled by th...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Tyre

Adria

A town in northeastern Italy founded by the Etruscans or the Veneti which flourished as a port on the Adriatic Sea in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It was an intersection of Etruscan and Greek trade, linking Etruria, the Po Valley, and northern Europe. The silting up of the Po and Adige deltas ca...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Adria

Arslan Tash

The site of the ancient city of Hadâtu, a provincial capital of the Assyrian kings of northern Syria, first excavated by the French in 1928. There was a central tell surrounded by a circular wall and a palace and temple containing fine ivories, dating from the beginning of the 8th century BC.

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Arslan Tash

Puuc

Region in the north-central region of the Yucatán, Mexico, with a distinctive Maya architectural style of 600-900 AD, the last variant of the Classic Maya culture. Its main characteristic is the use of veneer masonry to cover rubble and concrete walls, and the prefabrication of sculpted elements ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names, Regions

Puuc

Herculaneum

An ancient city of Campania, Italy, that was buried by the same volcano in 79 AD that took Pompeii. Already damaged by Vesuvius in 63 AD, Herculaneum was home to 5000 people. It had modern houses, tastefully decorated, and it was wealthier than Pompeii. In the destruction of 79 AD, the town was c...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Herculaneum

Aphrodisias

A Pre-Classical and Classical city on the Meander River of southwest Turkey with extant remains of the Roman period, including an agora, odeum, temple of Aphrodite, and baths. There also was an abundance of free-standing statues. The Pre-Classical mounds show Late Neolithic occupation and a seque...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities

Aphrodisias

Wasit

Military and commercial city of medieval Iraq, especially important during the Umayyad caliphate (661-750 AD). It was established as a military encampment in 702 on the Tigris River, between Basra and Kufah. A palace and the chief mosque were built and irrigation and cultivation were encouraged. ...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Cities, Place Names

Wasit