Ancient Greek Ruins in Croatia Date back to the Trojan War
Archaeologists in the village of Stobreč in Croatia have unearthed an ancient Greek settlement. What makes this find especially exciting is that the oldest finds date back some 3,500 years, placing them firmly in the era of the Greek Bronze Age, the era of the Trojan War.
This golden age for Greece saw a series of wealthy kingdoms arise on the Greek peninsula. This was an age of heroes, gods and monsters, before a sudden collapse starting around 1200 BC led to the abandonment of the great palaces and centuries of a Greek Dark Age.
Nobody knows for sure what happened to Mycenaean Greece, but it involved waves of emigrations as the Greeks left their homelands and sailed across the Aegean Sea looking for new lands to settle. This Croatian find contains remnants from that ancient, lost time.
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The Greeks also appeared to occupy this settlement at least in part during the Greek Dark Age. Among the best preserved aspects of the ruin is an enormous rampant structure, some part of the settlement’s defenses and built some 2,000 years ago, according to the press release from Croatia’s Ministry of Culture and Media.
These later Greeks were far different however to their Bronze Age ancestors who first lived here. It was these archaic Greeks who built most of the settlement, and there is also evidence of occupation throughout the Hellenistic period and even into Roman times.
Archaeologist Dr. Marina Ugarković from the Institute of Archaeology explained the finds. “These are impressive archaeological findings, including a Greek wall approximately forty meters long, with some sections reaching a depth of more than three meters,” she said.
Header Image: The excavated Greek ruins including the large L-shaped rampart wall. Some of the finds indicate a site dating back to the golden age of Bronze Age Greece. Source: Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media.
