Category: ruins

Athens: Weaving Old With New

A century and a half ago, Athens was a humble, forgotten city of about 8,000 people. Today, one out of every three Greeks packs into this city of over 3 million. The city is infamous for its sprawl, noise, and pollution. For a long time, my advice was to see the big sights, then get…


Italian Council Paying People $15,000 to Come Live on This Balmy, Beautiful Island in the Mediterranean

If life on a balmy island in the Mediterranean sounds enticing, the region of Sardinia is looking to lure new neighbors to come live there—and they’re paying you to move in. To curtail a dwindling population, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, next to Sicily, has earmarked 45 million euros for people buying or…


Soldiers Exhume 1,500-Year-Old Byzantine Convent With Breathtaking Mosaic Floor in Military Zone in Israel

A decades-old discovery of ruins of biblical significance was re-excavated this past summer, after being reburied once previously, in a joint Israeli military-antiquities conservation undertaking. Twenty years ago, a pair of Israeli researchers unearthed an ancient ecclesiastical site at Horbat Hani, in the foothills east of the then fledgling upscale settlement of Soham. Located here…


Scientists Unearth 3,400-Year-Old City That Emerged From Tigris River in Iraq, Reveal Ancient Clay Tablets

Kurdish and German archaeologists in early 2022 explored the remains of a 3,400-year-old-city that emerged from the depths of the Tigris River near Mosul in northern Iraq. Amidst the ruins of the Bronze Age city, once part of the Mitanni Empire which lasted from 1550 to 1350 B.C., they explored a palace previously known to…


Madagascar Cyclone Kills 21, Leaves Homes and Lives in Ruins

MANANJARY, Madagascar—Residents of a coastal town in Madagascar that was battered by Cyclone Batsirai over the weekend were left picking through the wreckage of their homes on Monday, collecting soaking wet clothing and anything else worth salvaging. The cyclone killed 21 people and displaced more than 60,000 after it slammed into the Indian Ocean island…