Message #100453

[Titiea]

I am sorry the first structure in the shape of a horseshoe is not the hippodrome with barracks for guards described by Plato in Critias 117c. Claudius Ptolemy the geographer mentioned such an “ippodromos aithiopias” but he located it in Maurusia actual Mauritania below the Atlas mountains of Morocco. This was surely due to the wrong view of the orientation of Africa in ancien times (see the map on my following post).

So I received recently the information from Claude Rilly the french specialist of the Meroitic language : this modern structure is the "Meroe Lounge", a hotel under luxuous tents for the visitors of Meroe...

As for the second rectangular structure, I don't know if it is ancient or modern...