By Maria Spiliopoulou
ATHENS, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Greek archaeologists clarified on Tuesday media reports about the discovery of a lost ancient city in central Greece, saying the ruins have been known to scholars for about two centuries, but it's the status of the city a new finding of them.
The archaeologists working on the project in Vlochos, some 200 km north of Athens, issued a statement to correct press articles published in international media this week regarding the "discovery" of a long lost ancient Greek city dating back 2,500 years.
"It is only the status of a city that can be confirmed by the new project," the archaeologists explained in a press release to the Greek news agency AMNA.
They noted that there had been several theories about what the remains represent based on unsystematic observations until recently.
The preliminary results of the three-year Vlochos Archaeological Project (VLAP) launched this year show that the remains indeed belong to a sizeable urban settlement.
"We would like to stress that the archaeological remains at site were well-known to the local archaeological service, and that our collaboration is focused on discovering the unknown aspects of the site," the press release said.
VLAP is a Greek-Swedish-British collaborative project and experts from the Ephorate of Antiquities of Karditsa, the University of Gothenburg and the University of Bournemouth are working side by side, they added.
They also underlined that "no finds have left or will ever leave Greece."
Most striking of the visible remains at the site are the well-preserved fortifications, at points 2.5 meters high, VLAP experts explained.
The aim of VLAP is to acquire an overview of the remains at the site using non-invasive methods such as drone photogrammetry and geophysical surveying.
