Author Topic: Selinunte, a lost city uncovered  (Read 3257 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Maik

  • Administrator
  • Forum Deity
  • *****
  • Posts: 35163
Selinunte, a lost city uncovered
« on: Monday, 09 November, 2015 @ 09:31:41 »


Quote
Selinunte: Site of ancient massacre yields the secrets of a lost Greek city
Exclusive: Like a Greek Pompeii, the city in Sicily remained at least partially intact despite the slaughter of its inhabitants

One of the ancient world’s greatest tragedies, frozen in time for almost 2500 years, is at last yielding up its long-lost secrets.

Archaeologists are gradually unearthing an ancient Greek city – Selinunte in Sicily – whose inhabitants were slaughtered or enslaved by North African invaders in the late 5th century BC.

Like an ancient Greek Pompeii, the whole city remained at least partially intact, despite the tragic loss of most of its inhabitants.

“Selinunte is the only classical Greek city where the entire metropolis is still preserved, mainly buried under sand and earth. It therefore gives us a unique opportunity to discover how an ancient Greek city functioned,” said Professor Martin Bentz of the University of Bonn, Director of the major current excavation at Selinunte.

The archaeology of Selinunte is unique, mainly because the entire city simply ceased  to exist as a major population centre in less than a day – as Carthaginian troops (from what is now modern Tunisia) punctured the defences and butchered 16,000 of the Greek inhabitants and soldiers who had been trying to defend it.

Some 5,000 more men were taken as slaves, as were many thousands of women and children.

Literally from one day to the next, the once bustling city became a ghost town.

Selinunte is now the largest archaeological park in Europe.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/selinunte-site-of-ancient-massacre-yields-the-secrets-of-a-lost-greek-city-a6726496.html