Free Republic

Chapters:0:00 Formerly lost cities2:30 Ekster3:32 Suburbs of Pompeii5:01 Tripergole5:45 Helike and other drowned cities6:44 Tigranocerta7:12 Ptolemais Theron and Muziris7 Lost Cities (that could still be found) | 8:35toldinstone | 444K subscribers | 69,473 views | December 8, 2023

"I knew that scholars didn't really understand why it's called the Parthenon," says Utrecht University archaeologist Janric van Rookhuijzen, "so I started looking into a giant puzzle of ancient texts, inscriptions, and archaeological remains." His surprising, perhaps even heretical, theory suggests that "Parthenon" may not have originally referred to the structure we know today -- which is sometimes called the Great Temple of Athena -- but to part of an altogether different temple on the Acropolis. For van Rookhuijzen, the crux of the issue lies in the meaning of the Greek word parthenon -- "a room for virgins or unwed...

Numerous classical authors report that natural phenomena played an essential part in one of their most sacred religious rituals: the oracle at Delphi. According to the geographer Strabo (c. 64 B.C.–25 A.D.), for example, "the seat of the oracle is a cavern hollowed down in the depths … from which arises pneuma [breath, vapor, gas] that inspires a divine state of possession" (Geography 9.3.5). Over the past five years, a team of researchers -- a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a toxicologist -- has put that claim to the test, making it much more likely that we will actually...