Free Republic

More than 4,000 years ago builders carved out the entire surface of a naturally pyramid-shaped promontory on the Greek island of Keros. They shaped it into terraces covered with 1,000 tonnes of specially imported gleaming white stone to give it the appearance of a giant stepped pyramid rising from the Aegean: the most imposing manmade structure in all the Cyclades archipelago... Archaeologists from three different countries involved in an ongoing excavation have found evidence of a complex of drainage tunnels -- constructed 1,000 years before the famous indoor plumbing of the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete -- and traces...

A total of seventy (70) partly or fully preserved Chian amphorae were recovered, which raised the number of amphorae stowed under the foredeck of the ship’s hold to ninety nine (99). Most of these amphorae were most probably carrying wine but at least one was full of olive pits, possibly for consumption by the crew. Also, two fishing weights were found, which offer us a glimpse of the life onboard the merchantmen of the period. Underneath the cargo, the wooden hull was poorly preserved, most probably (as a result of the wrecking episode and (the subsequent natural site formation processes...

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called on Turkey to respect International Law at the Press Conference following the 5th trilateral meeting in Israel with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday... “We have emphasised the need for respect of international law in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Respecting, in particular, the right of Cyprus to exercise its sovereign rights in its EEZ “. Mr Tsipras went on to underline the need for a just and viable solution of the Cypriot problem with the scrapping of the guarantees on the occupied part of the island and...

The traditional circular sea route by which merchants are thought to have sailed around the ancient Mediterranean runs counter-clockwise: from the Greek Mainland to Crete, south to Egypt, up to Syro-Palestine and Cyprus, west to the Aegean via the southern coast of Anatolia, then to Rhodes and the Cycladic Islands, and ending up again at Crete and Mainland Greece. Longer routes incorporated the Central and Western Mediterranean as well. Merchants may, of course, have started in on this route at any point, for instance in Italy or Syro-Palestine rather than Crete. Recent evidence has demonstrated that a clockwise route...

The dating of a piece of olive tree found on Thirasia will move the dating of the eruption of Santorini's volcano a few decades later than current estimates, the Ministry of Culture and Sports said on Friday. The wood was found in the area "Kimissi Thirassias", the prehistoric settlement which lies on a hillside of the island once connected to Thira, or Santorini, at least up to the Middle Bronze Age, before the volcano exploded. The settlement is on top of a hill on the southern side of Thirasia, and on the edge of the caldera that existed before the...

Turkey will defend its sovereign rights in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday in Ankara’s latest warning against hydrocarbon exploration off the coast of Cyprus. “We have a duty to protect [our rights],” Erdogan told a meeting of party officials, adding that standing up for its rights has given Turkey its existing “political, economic and social stature.” “We have been able to achieve this not only by taking action against certain people at home but also by standing up to the world’s biggest economic and military powers,” Erdogan said. Asked about...

A farmer in Kentri Ierapetra on Crete attempted to park his vehicle in the shade of an olive tree and by pure chance, the over-irrigated dirt under his vehicle revealed a carved tombstone of the Late Minoan III period... In the grave, that had not been ransacked, archaeologists discovered two large Larnaka Late Minoan period embossed depictions that are in excellent condition. In addition, there were two skeletons found in the graves and about 24 vases with colored embossings and depictions. "Soil retreat was a result of the watering of the olive trees in the area as well as a...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Odysseus, who voyaged across the wine-dark seas of the Mediterranean in Homer’s epic, may have had some astonishingly ancient forerunners. A decade ago, when excavators claimed to have found stone tools on the Greek island of Crete dating back at least 130,000 years, other archaeologists were stunned—and skeptical. But since then, at that site and others, researchers have quietly built up a convincing case for Stone Age seafarers—and for the even more remarkable possibility that they were Neandertals, the extinct cousins of modern humans. The finds strongly suggest that the urge to go to sea, and the cognitive and...

Greek and Turkish fighter jets engaged in two dogfights over the Aegean on Thursday, after the Turkish jets violated Greek airspace 16 times in the northeast, central and southeastern Aegean, the Hellenic National Defense General Staff (HNDGS) said. Six Turkish F-16 jets, one pair of F-4s and one CN-235 transport aircraft entered Athens's FIR without submitting a flight plan, and violated air traffic regulations seven times. In all cases, the Turkish aircraft were identified and intercepted by Greek fighter planes in line with international rules of engagement. Six of the eight Turkish aircraft were armed.

In an incident that took place less than two weeks after the Greek Defense Ministry announced that Turkey had violated Greek airspace 138 times in a single day, a Turkish coast guard patrol boat on February 13 rammed a Greek coast guard vessel off the shore of Imia, one of many Greek islands over which Turkey claims sovereignty. Most of the areas within modern Greece's current borders were under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th century until the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1832. The islands, however,...

Along the shore near the site, archaeologists have found more than 6,000 objects, including fragments of the red ceramics that are characteristic of the area. Beck called the area an “archaeologist’s paradise.” Beck points out that other civilizations were extant at the time, such as Egypt and the nascent civilizations at the islands of Crete and Santorini. The researchers expect that future research at Lambayanna will shed new light on a dense network of coastal settlements stretched throughout the Aegean Sea. Of the structures found by the researchers, Beck said “There must have been a brick superstructure above a stone...

In the winter of 479 B.C., a tsunami was the savior of Potidaea, drowning hundreds of Persian invaders as they lay siege to the ancient Greek village. New geological evidence suggests that the region may still be vulnerable to tsunami events, according to Klaus Reicherter of Aachen University in Germany and his colleagues. The Greek historian Herodotus described the strange retreat of the tide and massive waves at Potidaea, making his account the first description of a historical tsunami. Reicherter and colleagues have added to the story by sampling sediments on the Possidi peninsula in northern Greece where Potidaea (and...

The cargo ship named M/V ACT was carrying steel from the southern port of İskenderun to İzmit in the northwest when the Greek coast guard called on the ship to divert its course to Rhodes, Turkey-based Deniz Haber Ajansı reported. Turk said the Hellenic Coast Guard opened fire after the Turkish-flagged ship refused to comply with instructions to dock at the port of Rhodes for an inspection. The Greek coast guard confirmed the incident, saying it approached the vessel and asked the captain to dock at Rhodes after the authority received an anonymous call saying drugs were being transported.The captain...

It was then that Swiss scholar Emil Forrer deciphered newly discovered writings from the Hittite Empire to the east, finding two place-names—Wilusa and Taruisa—that sounded convincingly like the Hittite way of writing "Wilios" (the Greek name for the site was "Ilion") and "Troia" (Troy). He also found a treaty, from the early 13th century BC, between the Hittite king Muwatalli and a king of "Wilusa" named Alaksandu. The king’s name, Forrer added, recalls the name of the Trojan prince Alexander—called Paris in Homer’s Iliad. Critics pooh-poohed, conceding that a place named Wilusa may have existed, but where was it on...

A monastery hewn from the rock has been found during excavations and cleaning works in an underground city that was discovered in 2014 in the Central Anatolian province of Nevsehir... Excavation and cleaning works have been continuing on an area of 400,000 square meters that includes 11 neighborhoods around Nevsehir Castle, which is situated in the city center and has been declared a third-degree archaeological area. At the beginning of the year, a historic church was discovered in the underground city. The church features frescoes depicting the ascension of Jesus to heaven as well as other important objects for the...

George and I have had several meaningful conversations via email. This one might be of interest to other readers and George gave me permission to reproduce the conversation. George: I want to thank you for your blogs. I read them all the time and they have been a BIG help! I've been trying to sell others on the fact that the Hebrew lettering system goes back further than the 4th century millennium BC thanks to your findings of the Ainu/Annu culture and their lettering system in their later homeland of Japan - but with no success. I definitely believe your...

'Using just a small hand trowel these archaeologists are painstakingly working to unlock the secrets of an ancient kingdom. Historians believe they have unearthed tombs dating back over 2,800 years in Van, eastern Turkey. The pithos burial chambers, which are like large ceramic jars, are thought to be from the Kingdom of Uratu, which ruled the country from the mid-ninth century BC until its defeat by the Medes. Historians at work in the Turkish town of Vans, which was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom. Vans was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom until it fell early in the sixth...

Ancient Assyrian tablets, dictating social arrangements including women's rights, dating back to 4,000 years have been excavated in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri, a local newspaper reported Thursday. Prof. Fikri Kulakoglu of Ankara University told Dogan News Agency that the Kultepe-Kanis-Karum trade colony site where the tablets were unearthed was remarkable. He said the tablets revealed detailed information about the Assyrians, spanning from commercial trade to the nitty-gritty of the local social life. "From women's rights to the adoption of children and marriages arranged at birth, the tablets include all kinds of civilizational and social data from Anatolia 4,000...

The paving over of a 3,000-year-old tumulus, a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave, in the eastern city of Van has prompted an outcry from the Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate. Stating that the road was unnecessarily built, officials said: "We have halted the work on the road. The road and asphalt will be removed and the tumulus will be rehabilitated." Before the road was built by the municipality, the directorate had planned to start archaeological work in the historical tumulus, which dates from the Urartu period, along with work in the historical Van Castle. "A road...

Since this disk was found in Crete, and the people of Crete today speak Greek, that's a good language to assume was spoken by the maker of the disk. Still, that's a guess, or a hypothesis, not a fact. Besides that, we know that not everybody on Crete spoke Greek in the Bronze Age. The classical Greeks mentioned people they called Eteocretans who did not speak Greek. Further, we know that Linear A, written by the Minoans on Crete before the Mycenean Greeks came, did not represent Greek. Professor Hubert LaMarle considers it to be an early Indo-Iranian language, related...