The City Alexandria Troas was established in 310 B.C.E. by a successor of Alexander the Great. The city site has been looted over the centuries so that today little is left visible above ground. Beginning in the 1760s, scholar described the city walls and remaining buildings before many of the columns, blocks, and other artifacts were taken to Istanbul for use in its construction.  Contemporary research since 1989, led by  Professors Elmar Schwertheim and Hans Wiegantz from the university in Münster, Germany, has revealed a defensive wall eight kilometers long and forty-four towers enclosing an urban area of approximately one thousand acres or four hundred hectares.   The ancient city of Alexandria Troas is the largest known urban area in Asia Minor and in 310 B.C.E. was probably the largest in the entire Mediterranean world. The city was gigantic, as was every structure in it.  Herodes Atticus built a bath complex in Troas; the main building measured 123 x 84 meters and boasted the largest roof vault in the world at the time. Three city gates have been discovered up to now, the largest exiting the city on the east.  The east gate features a circular entrance area twenty meters wide, with massive walls that are currently being secured and reconstructed by Schwertheim’s team.  Such dimensions suggest that the east gate was the most important entrance to the city.  The apostle Paul probably entered this gate when he arrived at Alexandria Troas for the first time.  An international team of archaeologists, biblical scholars, historians, and technical specialists began a preliminary search for ancient roads in the Troad in the summer of 2005.  In the next several years, this team will be expanded in number to investigate the road system between Alexandria Troas and other cities as far east as Galatia, thus throwing light not only on the routes of Paul’s travels but also on the commercial and cultural links in this strategic area. Combining surface investigation, aerial and satellite photography, and ground-penetrating radar, the team expects to discover ancient roads that are now buried under farmers’ fields or existing modern streets. Below is a photograph of the massive paving stones of an ancient road to the east of Alexandria Troas.  The road runs beside the aqueduct that brought water from the mountains into the city.  True to form with everything about the city, the aqueduct is massive and of great length.  In the photograph, above only half of the five-meter-wide roadway is visible.  The road is the probable route taken by the apostle Paul when he journeyed to Troas for the first time.