On the Sinoe lakeside at a distance of 500 “stadia” from the Istros sacred mouth (as Strabo specifies it), there lay “Histria City”, the first Greek settlement on the western shore of the Black Sea and the most ancient town on Romania's territory.
Founded in about the middle of the 7th century B.C. (more specifically the year 657 B.C. according to the historian Eusebius) by colonists coming from Milet. The city had known an uninterrupted growth for 1300 years, from the Greek period until the Roman – Byzantine epoque. During the 7th century A.D., the city was destroyed by the Avar – Slavs attacks and gradually adandoned by its inhabitants.
Archaeological excavations, started from early 1914 revealed, besides the precincts' remains, a series of remarkable monuments dating from different epoques of the city's existence. As to the Greek period, we can notice the “sacred area” including the Zeus and Aphrodite Temples as well as remains of houses situated on the plateau where there was the civilian settlement. From the Imperial Roman period (the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D.) date the city's thermal baths and the street network system. Most of the monuments belong to the Roman – Byzantine epoque (the 4th - 6th centuries A.D.) and they are situated inside the later city : civilian or palaeochristian basilicae, public squares, shops, residential districts (domus) or economical quarters.
The excavations also offered a rich archaeological material of which the greatest part (remarkable archaeological fragments) is shown in the city museum : sculptures, reliefs, building materials, inscriptions, Greek and Roman pottery, glassware, metal goods.
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