classical world. It became the beating heart of a vast Punic empire that projected power across the Southwest Mediterranean, seeding its own colonies and sending magistrates to govern … century later, Roman Carthage rose to become a premier metropolis of the Roman Empire in Africa, and it remained a critical cultural and economic prize through the Byzantine

Marvdasht, encircled by the southern Zagros Mountains, the kings of the Achaemenid Empire raised a grand ceremonial complex that defied the typical definition of a city. Established around … Year, as nobility and subjects from the tribute-bearing corners of the empire climbed the stairways, their likenesses preserved in reliefs, to present gifts to the monarch

Marmara, it served as the heartbeat of four successive empires—the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman—spanning nearly sixteen centuries of continuous imperial rule. Despite surviving catastrophic events … city in 1453, Constantinople transitioned seamlessly into the capital of the Ottoman Empire, retaining its geopolitical supremacy until the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922. Though

city served as the capital of the Sogdian satrapy under the Persian Achaemenid Empire. For centuries, it endured as a primary urban center of Iranian civilization in Central … century, the conqueror Timur elevated the city to the capital of his own empire, sparking the Timurid Renaissance and establishing his final resting place

viewed as a war-stricken wasteland on the very margins of the empire. Today, Constanța is Romania’s oldest continuously inhabited city, its ancient Greek and Roman foundations

To understand the ancient Mediterranean is to understand the city that rose from the western edge of the Nile River Delta, near an Egyptian settlement named Rhacotis. Founded in 331 BCE by Alexander the Great, Alexandria

High in the Andean altiplano of western Bolivia, near the shores of Lake Titicaca, lie the megalithic blocks and monumental structures of an ancient city that once considered itself the literal midpoint of existence. Lon

Carved directly into the rose-colored sandstone cliffs of southern Jordan, the ancient city of Raqmu—known to the Greek world as Petra—began as a fortress of geography. Long before it became a legendary trading hub, the

Before it was ever called the City of the Prophet, the oasis in the Hejaz highlands of western Saudi Arabia was known as Yathrib. Its history stretches back to at least 900 BCE, long before the migration of Muhammad from