Word: massilia
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Paris could scarcely have been more than a tribal village when Phoenician sailors established Massilia on the southern coast of France during the 6th century B.C. So strong were the Massilians and the fortifications they built that not until Caesar laid extended siege to Massilia in 49 B.C. did the city's streets clink to the armor of invaders. Subsequently Romanized, then later buried for centuries beneath the foundations of what became the port of Marseille, the fortifications were unearthed this summer when contractors began excavations for three high-rise commercial buildings, a cultural center...
...archaeologists on hand were Professors Maurice Euzennat, 40, who also serves as director of antiquities of Provence and Corsica for French Minister of Culture André Malraux, and 30-year-old François Salviat. As the power shovels bit into the rocky grey soil, more and more of Massilia's fortifications began to appear. To Euzennat, it soon became apparent that a greater expanse of ramparts remained intact than anyone had estimated when fragments were unearthed earlier in the century. Moreover, the walls were definitely Greek rather than Roman, and far more important historically...