Twelve Ancient Cities from Knossos to Baalbek

Knossos is the largest center of Minoan civilization on Crete, first settled around 7000 BC. Its Palace of Minos, first built around 1900 BC and rebuilt after a destruction around 1700 BC, ties the site to the myths of King Minos, the Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne.

Mycenae in the northeastern Peloponnese gives its name to the Mycenaean period of roughly 1600 to 1100 BC. It reached a population of about 30,000 around 1350 BC and was listed by UNESCO in 1999 together with nearby Tiryns.

Troy, also called Ilion, is the setting of the Greek myth of the Trojan War. Its site in northwestern Turkey was rebuilt over roughly 4,000 years, leaving nine archaeological layers, and was rediscovered by Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann from 1871.

Delphi on the slope of Mount Parnassus was the seat of the Pythia, the oracle consulted on important decisions across the classical world. The Greeks held that it marked the center of the world, shown by the Omphalos stone.

Sparta, a city-state in Laconia, rose in the 7th century BC to become the most prominent land military power in Greece. Its forces under Leonidas fought at Thermopylae in 480 BC, and its power fell after defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC.

Miletus on the Anatolian coast was home to Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, whose 6th century BC inquiry into nature began the Milesian school. Hippodamus is credited with the grid plan, and silting of the harbor eventually left its ruins about 10 kilometers inland.

Cyrene in northeastern Libya was founded around 631 BC by Greek colonists from Thera under Battus I. It led the Pentapolis that gave Cyrenaica its name and became a UNESCO site in 1982, listed as in danger in 2017.

Carthage began as a Phoenician trading colony, said by legend to be founded by Queen Dido, and grew into a Punic empire. It was destroyed in 146 BC after the Third Punic War, rebuilt by Julius Caesar between 49 and 44 BC, and finally destroyed in 698 CE.

Pergamon was capital of the Attalid kingdom from 281 to 133 BC and built the monumental Pergamon Altar. It was the northernmost of the seven churches of Asia named in Revelation, and its site was inscribed by UNESCO in 2014.

Ephesus in Ionia was famed for the Temple of Artemis, completed around 550 BC as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It passed to Rome in 129 BC, became capital of the province of Asia, and was where the apostle Paul lived for three years.

Petra in southern Jordan is a rock cut city the Nabataeans called Raqmu. They harvested rainwater to support about 20,000 people in the 1st century AD, when Al-Khazneh was likely built, before Rome absorbed it in 106 AD and an earthquake in 363 AD damaged its water systems.

Baalbek in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley was renamed Heliopolis, or Sun City, after Alexander the Great's conquest in 334 BC. It flourished under Rome as a religious center known for grand temple complexes, and had 82,608 residents in 1998.