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A short of tour of the archaeological site of Olympia, home of the Olympic Games for more than a millennium. An Archaeological Tour of Olympia | 10:13 Scenic Routes to the Past | 54.2K subscribers | 7,791 views | January 9, 2026 0:00 Introduction 0:55 Gymnasium and Palaestra 1:39 Philippeion 2:09 Temple of Hera 2:35 Temple of Zeus 4:52 Workshop of Phidias 5:37 Leonidaion 6:12 East side structures 6:56 Treasuries and Metroon 7:42 Nymphaeum of Herodes Atticus 8:24 Stadium

Pausanias, a travel writer of the ancient world, described this course for horse races, its starting mechanisms, turning points and altars in much detail in the 2nd century AD... Another - previously unheeded - written source from the 11th century AD goes so far as to state the size and dimensions of the enclosure: "The olympiad has a course for horse races that [has a length of] 8 stadia. Each of the long sides is 3 stadia and 1 plethron long, while the width to the starting gates measures 1 stadion and 4 plethra, [a total of] 4800 feet. Near...

Professor Andreas Vött presents new results of geomorphological and geoarcheological investigations on the sedimentary burial of OlympiaOlympia, site of the famous Temple of Zeus and original venue of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, was presumably destroyed by repeated tsunamis that travelled considerable distances inland, and not by earthquake and river floods as has been assumed to date. Evidence in support of this new theory on the virtual disappearance of the ancient cult site on the Peloponnesian peninsula comes from Professor Dr Andreas Vött of the Institute of Geography of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Vött investigated the site as...

Major Quake Likely in Middle East, Survey Finds Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News July 26, 2007 In A.D. 551, a massive earthquake devastated the coast of Phoenicia, now Lebanon. The disaster is well-documented, but scientists had struggled over the years to locate the earthquake fault. Now a new underwater survey has uncovered the fault and shown that it moves approximately every 1,500 years—which means a disaster is due any day now. "It is just a matter of time before a destructive tsunami hits this region again," said Iain Stewart, an earthquake expert at the University of Plymouth in the...

Athens (AFP) – Flights at Greek airports were cancelled or delayed Sunday after a technical problem knocked out airspace radio frequencies, the country's civil aviation authority said, calling the outage "unprecedented". At Greece's main airport, Eleftherios Venizelos in Athens, passengers were stuck in long queues as several domestic and international flights were delayed or grounded altogether, an AFP reporter saw. The radio frequency loss was first reported around 0700 GMT. "No plane landed or took off for at least two hours," said the press office at Athens airport, where 31.6 million passengers transited in the first 11 months of 2025....

Fancy escaping to a remote Greek island with free accommodation? A dream opportunity has emerged for cat lovers who have some time to spare and truly want to make a difference. The snug island of Syros - located in the centre of the Aegean Sea and 70 miles from the port of Piraeus - is home to around 3,000 stray felines. Since the 1990s, charities such as Syros Cats have been working on managing population numbers, sterilisation and providing care to the cats. The organisation is now welcoming 'fit, mature, healthy and independent' volunteers who would like to help with...

Turkish Energy Minister, Alparslan Bayraktar said on Monday that Turkey intends to seal an energy exploration agreement with Syria in 2026 to assess possible offshore energy resources along the Syrian coast.In an interview with Turkish digital news platform GDH on Monday, Bayraktar said that Ankara and Damascus had already signed a general framework agreement on energy cooperation earlier this year."We plan to sign a specific offshore deal in 2026," he said. "After signing the deal, we may conduct seismic research to see what the field offers us".Bayraktar cautioned that the agreement does not necessarily mean Turkey would carry out drilling...

A tour of the agora and acropolis of ancient Sparta. The Ruins of Sparta | 6:46 Scenic Routes to the Past | 48.8K subscribers | views | December 12, 2025 0:00 Introduction 1:24 Agora 3:12 Acropolis 5:06 Temple of Artemis Orthia

The first trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s feature take of Homer’s The Odyssey is here, and yet the highly anticipated movie has already sold out 70MM Imax tickets at AMC and Regal cinemas. Matt Damon is seen here as Odysseus, King of Ithaca, leading his soldiers home after the Trojan War. There’s barely a glimpse of a monster in the trailer, but per the poem which is set around eighth century BCE, he faces Polyphemus the Cyclops, Sirens, the nymph Calypso and the witch goddess Circe in the treacherous oceans. If anything, there’s a lot of ocean and a lot of...

Archimedes, one of ancient Greece’s most famous and influential physicists and engineers, left a legacy of writings that had been thought to be lost to time. Much of his work only survived through copies and translations by scribes. One of the most famous fragments of Archimedes’ writings was the Palimpsest, a manuscript which by the 12th century a monk had overwritten and repurposed as a book of prayers. To discover the writings of Archimedes in the manuscript, scientists recently used the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to reveal the iron content of the ink written under the monk’s prayers. The method...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made a joint statement this evening following a trilateral meeting in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Netanyahu began: "This is not our first meeting. It's our tenth meeting. But I said in our discussions that I think it's the most consequential. The last time the three of us met was a short time before the October 7th massacre, before terror once again reminded us that stability in this region is never guaranteed, and that strength, clarity and cooperation are not options. They are a must." "The Middle...

In this feature-length Special, Derek and Lawrence return to Thessaly in Central Greece for a summer of excavation. They join an international team – headed by archaeologists from Greece and Sweden – to investigate the remains of the ancient city of Vlochos. This season, the team are digging what is thought to be a temple from the Hellenistic era – a golden age of antiquity. But is all as it seems? The team have just three weeks to find out! The Big Ancient Greek Dig Time Team X Crew (Vlochos) | LIVE (currently 2:54 pm) Time Team Official | 350K...

The tholos tombs around the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae are among the most spectacular sights in Greece. The Spectacular Tombs of Mycenae | 7:15 Scenic Routes to the Past | 47.7K subscribers | 2,222 views | November 21, 2025 0:00 Introduction 1:10 Grave Circle A 2:30 Grave Circle B 3:24 Tomb of Clytemnestra 4:20 Tomb of Aegisthus 4:49 Treasury of Atreus

The potential for a military clash between Turkey and Israel is growing. There are several colliding points, and each one of them has the potential to become a full-scale war, despite mechanisms designed to avoid conflict. The most obvious is the Syrian front. Reports indicate that Turkey plans to help Syria’s transitional government develop a military force of approximately 200,000 personnel (approximately 10–15 divisions). Turkey has assumed the role of protector of Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Jolani, his nom de guerre). Israel, for its part, has assumed the role of protector of the Druze minority in southwestern Syria, an area...

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday designated four European left-wing groups as terrorist organizations, following through on his vow to crack down on leftists after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The networks targeted by Trump’s Republican administration all appear to be based in Europe, with no operations in the United States. They are an Italian anarchist front that sent explosive packages to the then-president of the European Commission in 2003, two Greek networks believed to have planted bombs outside riot police and labor department buildings in Athens, and an anti-fascist group whose members were prosecuted by German authorities...

Greeks and Turks have been at each other’s throats for centuries over many different things, but a rivalry seldom mentioned revolves around the origins of baklava. The history of this scrumptious delicacy is quite controversial, and unfortunately not very well documented. Many ethnic groups such as the Greeks, Turks, and Middle Easterners claim baklava as their own and prepare it in their own way. The “Baklava Conflict” has been simmering for centuries, but it erupted into full-blown war in 2006, when Greek Cypriots decided to call baklava their own. A definite sacrilege according to the Turks! Turkey, as an aspiring...

A giant colonial spiderweb in a sulfuric cave on the border between Greece and Albania may be the largest ever found — and it was built by spiders we didn't know liked the company of others.Researchers have discovered more than 111,000 spiders thriving in what appears to be the world's biggest spiderweb, deep inside a pitch-black cave on the Albanian-Greek border.The "extraordinary" colony consists of a colossal web in a permanently dark zone of the cavern, according to a study published Oct. 17 in the journal Subterranean Biology. The web stretches 1,140 square feet (106 square meters) along the wall...

Discovered within the darkness of Petralona Cave, this remarkable skull - which belongs to an archaic species of human - is notable for the fact that it has a stalagmite growing directly through it. Initially found in 1960 and often referred to as "Petralona Man", this intriguing specimen has long left paleoanthropologist's scratching their heads. A recent study has concluded that it is neither Neanderthal nor human, leaving a question mark over exactly which species of archaic human ancestor it actually belonged to. The 'Petralona Man' skull. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 NadinaThe skull is also now believed to date...

October 13th is the day that marks the death of one of the most important defenders of Macedonia’s struggle for freedom, the Hellenic Army Officer Pavlos Melas. Melas, born in 1870 in the French city of Marseille, was the son of Michael Melas, an elected MP for Attica and mayor of Athens. At an early age, Melas decided to go to Athens to study and later joined the Hellenic Army, graduating from the Hellenic Army Academy as an artillery lieutenant at age 21. In 1892, he married Natalia Dragoumi, the daughter of a famous politician from Macedonia’s city of Kastoria,...

The Senate confirmed 107 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a single vote on Tuesday evening, significantly clearing the backlog of the president’s picks awaiting floor consideration. Senators voted along party lines to approve the large group of nominees, which included former football star and ex-Senate candidate Herschel Walker and former White House personnel director Sergio Gor. The mass confirmation of the president’s picks comes after Senate Republicans changed chamber precedent to expedite the confirmation process, citing months of unprecedented obstruction from Senate Democrats. Trump has nearly 300 civilian nominees confirmed following the massive group vote. The 107 individuals confirmed...