Saturday, February 9, 2019

Lost cities have fascinated people ever since Plato told the story of Atlantis. Troy was the setting of Homer’s “Iliad.” The actual city, in present-day Turkey


Replying to
@atlasobscura
Troy was the setting of Homer’s “Iliad.” The actual city, in present-day Turkey, was a mystery—until archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann went searching for it. But he ended up excavating the wrong Troy, and now it’s believed another layer of the city is closest to “Homeric” Troy.
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Few cities can match Troy for the stories that have been told about it, but Knossos, on the island of Crete, is one of them. Home of the Minotaur—that half-man, half-bull of Greek mythology—and the impossible labyrinth of Daedalus, it’s held mystery for thousands of years.
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Petra, in modern-day Jordan, the “rose-red city, half as old as time,” with its spectacular rock-cut temples, was unknown in the West until 1812. It was “rediscovered” by accident by a young Swiss adventurer, but its existence had been known for centuries in the Middle East.
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