Pompeii was a busy Roman town of perhaps 11,000 people near the Bay of Naples, with bakeries, bathhouses, taverns and an amphitheatre older than the Colosseum.
In 79 CE Vesuvius erupted. Within two days the town lay under pumice and ash. Pliny the Younger watched from across the bay and wrote the only eyewitness account.
Excavation began in 1748. In 1863 Giuseppe Fiorelli poured plaster into the hollows left by the victims' bodies, creating the haunting casts that visitors see today.
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Athens
Birthplace of democracy, philosophy and the Parthenon.
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Thebes (Luxor)
Capital of the Pharaohs, with the Valley of the Kings across the Nile.
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Carthage
Hannibal's city, Rome's great rival across the sea.
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Constantinople (Istanbul)
The city on two continents, capital of two empires.
Alexandria
Alexander's city of the Great Library and the Lighthouse.
