Greece, Argos – Monumental pedestal (00:00:46)

Argos lies on the west side of the fertile Argolid plain in the eastern Peloponnese in Greece. The plain, which measures some 250 square kilometres (95 square miles), was well-watered thanks to rivers running down from the nearby western mountains. The Charadros river (today called the Xerias) ran past two sides of Argos. The site has been inhabited from prehistoric times (3000 BCE) up to the present day. Ancient Argos was built in the Late Bronze Age on two hills: Aspis and Larissa, 80 m (262 ft.) and 289 m (948 ft.) in height respectively. It prospered as a Mycenaean centre but was at that time smaller than its neighbours Mycenae and Tiryns. A cemetery, which includes tholos chamber-tombs, dates to this period, and the city seems to have been at its Bronze Age peak in the 14th and 13th century BCE.