A team of archaeologists have discovered a 2,500-year-old lost city in Greece, once dismissed as insignificant ruins.
An international team of researchers from the University of Gothenburg (in Sweden) and the University of Bournemouth (in the UK) have begun exploring the ruins at a village called Vlochos, around 300km (190 miles) north of Athens, but they won’t be using traditional digging techniques, using ground-penetrating radar instead.
While some of the ruins were already known, they had been dismissed as part of an irrelevant settlement, the leader of the team, Robin Ronnlund, said in a statement. “The fact that nobody has ever explored the hill before is a mystery.”
The team, which also includes Greek researchers from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Karditsa, found the remains of towers, walls and city gates on the summit and slopes of the hill.
They hope to leave the site in the same condition as when they found it.
They discovered ancient pottery fragments and coins dating back to around 500 BC.
Dr. Ronnlund said the city appears to have flourished from the fourth to the third century BC before it was abandoned.
Additional field work is planned for August of 2017.
“Very little is known about ancient cities in the region, and many researchers have previously believed that western Thessaly was somewhat of a backwater during Antiquity. Our project therefore fills an important gap in the knowledge about the area and shows that a lot remains to be discovered in the Greek soil.”
Video about the discovery from The Independent:
