- Pompeii & Herculaneum: excavated cities, buried by volcano 79 BC
- - Troy / Hissarlik, Turkey: The city was founded around 3000 BC,
destroyed at the Trojan wars ca 1250 BC, re-settled later by Greek and Romans. Excavations were started by Heinrich Schliemann (1822-90) in
1870, who rediscovered the site described by Homer in the Iliad. The city ruins consist of
9 layers. Schliemann found e.g. the famous
gold treasury, which is at the Pushkin museum in Moscow.
- Selinunte, Sicily. Huge city ruined by Hannibal in 409 BC. Mostly, it's a vast field
of rubble. The main street is about 1 km long. Walking along it, is like being at Ground Zero.
And no other tourists in sight when I was there on a sunny day in
January 2002.
- Agrigento, Sicily. Large city sacked in 406 BC. Several beautiful temples remain.
- Dougga, Tunisia: preserved Roman ruin city,
photo
- Karthage, Tunisia: Phoenician & Roman excavations with museum
- - Leptis Magna, Libya:
Well preserved ruin city
- - Timgad: Roman ruin city in
Algeria.
- - Baalbek, Lebanon: classic ruin city, photo
- - Persepolis, Iran: ruins of king Xerxes' city , 6th c BC.
photo from The Oriental Institute of The University
of Chicago.
- - Petra, Jordania: rock city with carved-out temples inhabited by Nabateans,
deserted since 7th c AD, photo
- - Palmyra, Syria: preserved classic ruin city sacked in 634 AD,
photo1, photo2
- - Angkor, Cambodia: Khmer city, 11th c
Per Åkesson 1994, revised
apr '10 |
