Lost city

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For other uses of the term Lost city, see Lost city (disambiguation).

In the popular imagination lost cities were real, prosperous, well-populated areas of human habitation that fell into terminal decline and whose location was later lost. Most lost cities are of ancient origins, and have been studied extensively by archaeologists. Abandoned urban sites of relatively recent origin are generally referred to as ghost towns.

Lost cities generally fall into three broad categories: those whose disappearance has been so complete that no knowledge of the city existed until the time of its rediscovery, those whose location has been lost but whose memory has been retained in the context of myths and legends, and those whose existence and location have always been known, but which are no longer inhabited.

The search for such lost cities by European adventurers in the Americas, Africa and in Southeast Asia from the 15th century onwards eventually led to the development of the science of archaeology.

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[edit] How are cities lost?

Cities may become lost for a variety of reasons, including geographic, economic, social (e.g. war), others, or some combination of these. Many are lost for reasons that are currently unknown.

An Arabian city named Ubar (Iram of the Pillars) was abandoned with changes in trade routes, and its location was forgotten for some centuries. It was rediscovered in 1992 by satellite photography that revealed the traces of the ancient tradeways.

Other settlements are lost with little or no clues to guide historians, such as the Colony of Roanoke. In August 1590, John White returned to the former English colony, which had housed 91 men (including White), 17 women (two of them pregnant) and 11 children when he left, to find it completely empty. (However, there is documented evidence of voluntary assimilation into the neighboring Croatan Indian nation: "We were taught in elementary school that the first settlements in Roanoke failed; the colonists disappeared, leaving behind them only the cryptic message "Gone To Croatan." Later reports of "grey-eyed Indians" were dismissed as legend. What really happened, the textbook implied, was that the Indians massacred the defenseless settlers. However, "Croatan" was not some Eldorado; it was the name of a neighboring tribe of friendly Indians. Apparently the settlement was simply moved back from the coast into the Great Dismal Swamp and absorbed into the tribe. And the grey-eyed Indians were real--they're still there, and they still call themselves Croatans.

So--the very first colony in the New World chose to renounce its contract with Prospero (Dee/Raleigh/Empire) and go over to the Wild Men with Caliban. They dropped out. They became "Indians," "went native," opted for chaos over the appalling miseries of serfing for the plutocrats and intellectuals of London. - from Hakim Bey's "Gone To Croatan"." )

Malden Island, in the central Pacific, was deserted when first visited by Europeans in 1825, but ruined temples and the remains of other structures found on the island indicate that a small population of Polynesians had lived there for perhaps several generations some centuries earlier. Prolonged drought seems the most likely explanation for their demise. The ruins of another city, called Nan Madol, have been found on the Micronesian island of Ponape. In more recent times Port Royal, Jamaica sank into the Caribbean Sea after an earthquake.

Cities have been destroyed by natural disasters and rebuilt again (and again), but the destruction has occasionally been so complete that they were not rebuilt. Classic examples include the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried with many of their inhabitants in a catastrophic flow of volcanic ash after an eruption of Vesuvius. A lesser known example would be Akrotiri, on the island of Thera, where in 1967, under a blanket of ash, the remains of a Minoan city were discovered. The volcanic explosion on Thera was immense, and had disastrous effects on the Minoan civilisation. (It has been suggested that this disaster was the inspiration that Plato used for the story of Atlantis.)

Less dramatic examples of the destruction of cities by natural forces are those where the coastline has eroded away. Cities which have sunk into the sea include the one-time centre of the English wool-trade, at Dunwich, England, and the city of Rungholt in Germany which sunk into the North Sea in a great stormtide in 1362.

Cities are also often destroyed by wars. This is the case, for instance, with Troy and Carthage, though both of these were subsequently rebuilt, and the Achaemenid capital at Persepolis was accidentally burnt by Alexander the Great.

Various capitals in the Middle East were abandoned; after Babylon was abandoned Ctesiphon became the capital of the new Parthian Empire, and was in turn passed over in favor of Baghdad (and later Samarra) for the site of the Abbasid capital though all these cities are fairly close together.

Some of the cities which are considered lost are (or may be) places of legend such as the Arthurian Camelot, Russian Kitezh, Lyonesse and Atlantis. Others, such as Troy and Bjarmaland, having once been considered to be legendary, may actually have existed.

[edit] Lost cities by region

[edit] Africa

  • Akhetaten, Egypt – Capital during the reign of 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. Later abandoned and almost totally destroyed. Modern day el Amarna.
  • Canopus, Egypt – Located on the now-dry Canopic branch of the Nile, east of Alexandria.
  • Itjtawy, Egypt – Capital during the 12th Dynasty. Exact location still unknown, but it is believed to lie near the modern town of el-Lisht.
  • Tanis, Egypt – Capital during the 21st and 22nd Dynasties, in the Delta region.
  • Memphis, Egypt – Administrative capital of ancient Egypt. Little remains.
  • The capital city of the Hyskos in the Nile Delta.
  • Leptis Magna – Roman city located in present day Libya. It was the birthplace of Emperor Septimius Severus, who lavished an extensive public works programme on the city, including diverting the course of a nearby river. The river later returned to its original course, burying much of the city in silt and sand.
  • Dougga, Tunisia – Roman city located in present day Tunisia.
  • Carthage – Initially a Phoenician city, destroyed and then rebuilt by Rome. Later served as the capital of the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa, before being destroyed by the Byzantine Empire.
  • Great Zimbabwe
  • Audoghast – Wealthy Berber city in medieval Ghana, sacked by mujihadeen, location unknown.

[edit] Asia

[edit] Far East Asia

[edit] Southeast Asia

[edit] South Asia

[edit] Central Asia

[edit] Western Asia/Middle East

[edit] South America

[edit] Inca cities

[edit] Other

[edit] North America

[edit] Maya cities

incomplete list – for further information, see Maya civilization

  • Chichen Itza – This ancient place of pilgrimage is still the most visitied Maya ruin.
  • Copán – In modern Honduras.
  • Calakmul – One of two "superpowers" in the classic Maya period.
  • Koba
  • Naachtun – Rediscovered in 1922, it remains one of the most remote and least visited Maya sites. Located 44 km (27 miles) south-south-east of Calakmul, and 65 km (40 miles) north of Tikal, it is believed to have had strategic importance to, and been vulnerable to military attacks by, both neighbours. Its ancient name was identified in the mid-1990s as Masuul.
  • Palenque — in Chiapas, Mexico, known for its beautiful art and architecture
  • Tikal — One of two "superpowers" in the classic Maya period.

[edit] Olmec cities

[edit] Lost cities in the United States

[edit] Lost cities in Canada

[edit] Other

[edit] Europe

[edit] See also

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