Unknown city recently “discovered” in Greece is well-known after all

Archaeology News Network published an article about recent explorations of a previously unknown ancient city in Central Greece. The work was carried out by the University of Gothenburg and they stated that nobody had explored the site before – something highly unusual in Greece to say the least.

[Aerial view of the ancient acropolis at Vlochos [Credit: VLAP]

They found remains of towers, walls and city gates at the top of a hill and the plans were to explore the underground with ground-penetrating radar instead of traditional excavations. They were able to locate the town square and several streets inside the city walls covering an area of more than 40 hectares. Thanks to the potsherds and coins that were recovered, they could date the city to at least 500 BC, although it reached its heydays in the 4^th and 3^rd century BC.

In the wake of this announcement, Archaeology News Network published an errata a few days later, confirming that the so-called lost city had already been discovered some 200 years ago. However, no in-depth examination had been carried out and the scholars are happy to learn this was a sizeable settlement in antiquity.

They apologize (rightfully so) for their earlier confusing publication, stating that the press headlines were “a bit exaggerated”.