Australian archaeologists will try to solve the ancient mystery of why a bustling early Iron Age city in Greece was abandoned and whether a lack of fresh water was the cause.
They're off to Zagora, a city that was thriving with farming and industry on the island of Andros in the 9th century BC before it was inexplicably abandoned.
That was about the time of Homer and before Sparta and the Athenian democracy.
Australia's first archaeological dig in Greece was at Zagora in the 1960s and 1970s and they managed to excavate about 10 per cent of the 6.5 hectare site but did not solve the riddle.
Now 50 Australians will begin working there again next week, hoping to finally explain why an entire population would leave a city at the heart of a major sea trading route.
Some things haven't changed.
They'll have to hike in and out to the isolated site each day and use pack mules to carry heavy equipment.
But some things are different.
Ground-penetrating radar, satellite imaging analysis and multi-spectral treatment of those images might help, says one of the dig's co-directors, Lesley Beaumont from Sydney University's Department of Archaeology.
"What we are able to do now, which couldn't even have been dreamed of back then, is to use subsurface testing methods ... to look underneath the surface of the ground before even putting a spade into it," she told AAP.
They are curious about whether hydrology might have something to do with the abandonment of the settlement that had been growing at an extraordinary rate.
With three years of funding they began last year with big picture analysis and geophysical survey with help from a geologist.
This year includes satellite imagery work, aerial photography and a full excavation season from September 23 until November 4.
