Ancient Greek Sites

Caulonia

Caulonia was an ancient city of Magna Graecia on the shore of the Ionian Sea. In ancient times the shoreline of Caulonia lay 300 meter further seawards. There is no literary evidence for the foundation date of Caulonia, but archeological evidence shows that it was founded early in the second half of the seventh century BCE. Both Strabo and Pausanias mention that the city was founded by Achaean Greek colonists. In 389 BC ...
Founded: 7th century BCE | Location: Monasterace, Italy

Vroukounta

The ancient Vrykous city of the Dorians may have reached its peak during the 4th and the 3rd centuries BC, but this place seems to have been inhabited since the Minoan – Mycenaean era. The ancient city has been completely looted. Its carved tombs stand wide open with no grave goods left in them. The residents Christianized the place during the next centuries (according to reports of the Archaeological Service three basi ...
Founded: 4th century BCE | Location: Karpathos, Greece

Poliochne

Poliochne, often cited under its modern name Poliochni, was an ancient settlement on the east coast of the island of Lemnos. It was settled in the Late Chalcolithic and earliest Aegean Bronze Age and is believed to be one of the most ancient towns in Europe, preceding Troy I. Anatolian features of the earliest layers were affected by cultural influences from Helladic Greece, about the start of Early Helladic II, ca. 2500 ...
Founded: 2500 BCE | Location: Lemnos, Greece

Eleutherna

Eleutherna was an ancient city-state in Crete. During the ninth century BCE, in sub-Mycenaean times, in the Geometric Period of the later Greek Dark Ages, Dorians colonized the city on a steep, naturally fortified ridge. The city"s location made it a natural crossroads, as it lay between Cydonia on the northwest coast and Knossos, and between the shore, where it controlled its ports, Stavromenos and Pano ...
Founded: 800-900 BC | Location: Rethymno, Greece

Antigonea

Antigonea was an ancient Greek city in Chaonia, Epirus, and the chief inland city of the ancient Chaonians. It was founded in the 3rd century BC by Pyrrhus of Epirus, who named it after one of his wives, Antigone, daughter of Berenice I and step-daughter of Ptolemy I of Egypt. 'The straits near Antigoneia' were mentioned in 230 BC, when a force of Illyrians under Scerdilaidas passed the city to join an invading ...
Founded: 300-200 BCE | Location: Gjirokaster, Albania

Stari Grad Plain

The Stari Grad Plain of the town of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar is an agricultural landscape that was set up by the ancient Greek colonists in the 4th century BC, and remains in use. The plain is generally still in its original form. The ancient layout has been preserved by careful maintenance of the stone walls over 24 centuries, along with the stone shelters (known locally as trims), and the water collection system ...
Founded: 4th century BCE | Location: Stari Grad, Croatia

Casmenae

Casmenae or Kasmenai was an ancient Greek colony located on the Hyblaean Mountains, founded in 644 BC by the Syracusans at a strategic position for the control of central Sicily. It was also intended as a military forward-position on the Via Selinuntina road that connected Syracuse to Akragas (modern-day Agrigento) - also on that road were Gela and Akrillai to Casmene"s west and Akrai to its east. Destroyed b ...
Founded: 644 BCE | Location: Buscemi, Italy

Colonne di San Basilio

The Colonne di San Basilio (Columns of St Basil) are an ancient Greek structure, which take their name from the mountain of San Basilio where they are located, in the territory of Lentini. The summit of the mountain shows trances of ancient settlement from the prehistoric period, with clear traces of the postholes of a hut, probably belonging to the Casteluccio culture. A little way away is the imposing structure ...
Founded: 5th century BC | Location: Lentini, Italy

Sabucina

The archaeological park of Sabucina contains settlements ranging from the Bronze Age (20th-16th century BC) to the Roman period. The original village has securely pre-Greek origins, it was constructed by the Sicans, who took advantage of the dominant position of the mountain over the Salso river valley. The first phase of the Greek settlement came in the 7th century. The centre consisted of rectangular habitations, wi ...
Founded: 2300 BCE | Location: Caltanissetta, Italy

Mount Bonifato Archaeological site

The Archaeological site of Mount Bonifato is located in Alcamo. According to Licofrone of Alexandria, there was a village called Longuro on Mount Bonifato of Alcamo in ancient times. This settlement had been founded by a colony of Greeks who had escaped from Troy. The archeological site was probably inhabited from the 7th century BCE to the 12th century AD. From the 6th century BCE Mount Bonifato very probably had the st ...
Founded: 7th century BCE | Location: Alcamo, Italy

Hippana

Hippana was an ancient town of Sicily, mentioned by Polybius as being taken by assault by the Romans in the First Punic War, 260 BCE. Diodorus, in relating the events of the same campaign, mentions the capture of a town called 'Sittana', for which we should in all probability read 'Hippana'. It sat astride the main road from Panormus (modern Palermo) to Agrigentum (modern Agrigento) upon Monte dei Cava ...
Founded: 7th century BCE | Location: Prizzi, Italy

Archeological Park of Monte Sannace

The Monte Sannace Archaeological Park is home to one of the most important indigenous sites of the pre-Roman Peucetian tribe. The settlement has offered up archaeological evidence dating across a vast period stretching from the Iron Age to the early Roman Empire. The site flourished between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC, and in particular during the Hellenistic Age. In the second half of the 4th century BC, Monte Sannac ...
Founded: 6th century BCE | Location: Sammichele di Bari, Italy

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Historic Site of the week

Krickenbeck Castle

Krickenbeck moated castle is one of the oldest on the lower Rhine. Its history dates back to the year 1104, when the castle was first mentioned. It is unclear why the old castle, which was certainly inhabited by Count Reginar, was abandoned or destroyed. In the mid-13th century the castle was moved to the current location. At the end of the 14th century the new castle belonged to the Counts of Kleve.

Johann Friedrich II of Schesaberg converted the castle into a Baroque mansion between 1708-1721. On September 7, 1902, a fire destroyed the entire mansion. From 1903 to 1904, a three-winged castle was built in the Neo-Renaissance style. Today Krickenbeck is a conference center.