34 Lost Cities Forgotten by Time.pdf

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34 Lost Cities Forgotten by TimeLast updated on July 15, 2014 in History | 27 comments

It’s hard to imagine how an entire city can get lost but that’s exactly what has happened to the lost cities on this list. Thereare actually many reasons why a city has to be abandoned. War, natural disasters, climate change and the loss of importanttrading partners to name a few. Whatever the cause, these lost cities were forgotten in time until they were rediscoveredcenturies later.



34Carthage

flickr/mutbka

Located in present-day Tunisia, Carthage was founded by Phoenician colonists and became a major power in theMediterranean. The resulting rivalry with Syracuse and Rome was accompanied by several wars with respective invasionsof each other’s homeland, most notable the invasion of Italy by Hannibal. The city was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC.The Romans went from house to house, capturing, raping and enslaving the people before setting Carthage ablaze.However, the Romans re-founded Carthage, which became one of the Empire’s largest and most important city. It remainedan important city until it was destroyed a second time in 698 AD during the Muslim conquest.

Read more: Tunisia Guide



33Ciudad Perdida

flickr/Jungle_Boy

Ciudad Perdida (Spanish for “Lost City”) is an ancient city in Sierra Nevada, Colombia, believed to have been founded

around 800 AD. The lost city consists of a series of terraces carved into the mountainside, a net of tiled roads and severalsmall circular plazas. Members of local tribes call the city Teyuna and believe it was the heart of a network of villagesinhabited by their forebears, the Tairona. It was apparently abandoned during the Spanish conquest.

Read more: Colombia Guide





31Skara Brae

flickr/chatirygirl

Located on the main island of Orkney, Skara Brae is one of the best preserved Stone Age villages in Europe. It was coveredfor hundreds of years by a sand dune until a great storm exposed the site in 1850. The stone walls are relatively well

preserved because the dwellings were filled by sand almost immediately after the site was abandoned. Because there wereno trees on the island, furniture had to be made of stone and thus also survived. Skara Brae was occupied from roughly 3180BC – 2500 BC. After the climate changed, becoming much colder and wetter, the settlement was abandoned by itsinhabitants.

Read more: United Kingdom Guide

Read more: Skara Brae Guide



30Memphis

flickr/IDS.photos

Memphis, founded around 3,100 BC, is the legendary city of Menes, the King who united Upper and Lower Egypt. Earlyon, Memphis was more likely a fortress from which Menes controlled the land and water routes between Upper Egypt andthe Delta. By the Third Dynasty, Saqqara had become a sizable city. It fell successively to Nubia, Assyria, Persia, andMacedonia under Alexander the Great. Its importance as a religious centre was undermined by the rise of Christianity andthen of Islam. It was abandoned after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 AD. Its ruins include the great temple of Ptah,royal palaces, and a colossal statue of Rameses II. Nearby are the pyramids of Saqqara.

Read more: Egypt Guide



29Caral

flickr/edgar asencios

Located in the Supe Valley in Peru, Caral is one of the most ancient lost cities of the Americas. It was as inhabited betweenroughly 2600 BC and 2000 BC. Accommodating more than 3,000 inhabitants, it is one of the largest cities of the NorteChico civilization. It has a central public area with six large platform mounds arranged around a huge plaza. All of the lostcities in the Supe valley share similarities with Caral. They had small platforms or stone circles. Caral was probably thefocus of this civilization.

Read more: Peru Guide



28Babylon

wikipedia/Mate Edward G.

Babylon, the capital of Babylonia, an ancient empire of Mesopotamia, was a city on the Euphrates River. The city

degenerated into anarchy circa 1180 BC, but flourished once again as a subsidiary state of the Assyrian Empire after the 9thcentury BC. The brilliant color and luxury of Babylon became legendary from the days of Nebuchadnezzar (604-562 BC),who is credited for building the legendary Hanging Gardens. All that remains of the famed city today is a mound of brokenmud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq.

Read more: Iraq Guide

http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_historical_city_of_Babylon.jpg






27Taxila

flickr/Mr.Matt

Located in northwestern Pakistan, Taxila is an ancient city that was annexed by the Persian King Darius the Great in 518BC. In 326 BC the city was surrendered to Alexander the Great. Ruled by a succession of conquerors, the city became animportant Buddhist centre. The apostle Thomas reputedly visited Taxila in the 1st century AD. Taxila’s prosperity inancient times resulted from its position at the junction of three great trade routes. When they declined, the city sank intoinsignificance. It was finally destroyed by the Huns in the 5th century.

Read more: Pakistan Guide

Read more: Taxila Guide



26Sukhothai

flickr/antonde

Sukhothai is one of Thailand’s earliest and most important historical cities. Originally a provincial town within the Angkor- based Khmer empire, Sukhothai gained its independence in the 13th century and became established as the capital of thefirst united and independent Tai state. The ancient town is reported to have had some 80,000 inhabitants. After 1351, whenAyutthaya was founded as the capital of a powerful rival Tai dynasty, Sukhothai’s influence began to decline, and in 1438the town was conquered and incorporated into the Ayutthaya kingdom. Sukhothai was abandoned in the late 15th or early16th century.

Read more: Thailand Guide

Read more: Sukhothai Guide

http://www.touropia.com/explore/thailand/



http://www.touropia.com/explore/thailand/sukhothai/







25Timgad

wikipedia/Anna Stryjewska

Timgad was a Roman colonial town in Algeria founded by the Emperor Trajan around 100 AD. Originally designed for a population of around 15,000, the city quickly outgrew its original specifications and spilled beyond the orthogonal grid in amore loosely-organized fashion. In the 5th Century, the city was sacked by the Vandals and two centuries later by theBerbers. The city disappeared from history, becoming one the lost cities of the Roman Empire, until its excavation in 1881.

Read more: Algeria Guide

http://www.touropia.com/explore/algeria/






24Mohenjo-daro

flickr/ bennylin0724

Built around 2600 BC in present-day Pakistan, Mohenjo-daro was one of the early urban settlements in the world. It issometimes referred to as “An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis”. It has a planned layout based on a grid of streets, which

were laid out in perfect patterns. At its height the city probably had around 35,000 residents. The buildings of the city were particularly advanced, with structures constructed of same-sized sun dried bricks of baked mud and burned wood. Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Valley civilization vanished without a trace from history around 1700 BC until discovered in the 1920s.

Read more: Pakistan Guide

http://www.touropia.com/explore/pakistan/






23Great Zimbabwe

flickr/hchalkley

The Great Zimbabwe, is a complex of stone ruins spread out over a large area in modern-day Zimbabwe, which itself isnamed after the ruins. The word “Great” distinguishes the site from the many hundred small ruins, known as Zimbabwes,spread across the country. Built by indigenous Bantu people, the construction started in the 11th century and continued forover 300 years. At its peak, estimates are that Great Zimbabwe had as many as 18,000 inhabitants. Causes for the declineand ultimate abandonment of the site have been suggested as due to a decline in trade, political instability and famine andwater shortages caused by climatic change.

Read more: Zimbabwe Guide

http://www.touropia.com/explore/zimbabwe/






22Hatra

wikipedia/Victrav

A large fortified city under the influence of the Parthian Empire and capital of the first Arab Kingdom, Hatra withstoodseveral invasions by the Romans thanks to its high, thick walls reinforced by towers. The city fell to the Iranian SassanidEmpire of Shapur I in 241 AD and was destroyed. The ruins of Hatra in Iraq, especially the temples where Hellenistic andRoman architecture blend with Eastern decorative features, attest to the greatness of its civilization.




21Sanchi

flickr/mAhEsH BaSeDiA

The Sanchi site has a building history of more than one thousand year, starting with the stupas of the 3rd century BC andconcluding with a series of Buddhist temples and monasteries, now in ruins, that were build in the 10th or 11th centuries. Inthe 13th century, after the decline of Buddhism in India, Sanchi was abandoned and the jungle quickly moved in. The lostcity was rediscovered in 1818 by a British officer.

Read more: India Guide



20Hattusa

wikipedia/Wikipedia

Hattusa became the capital of the Hittite Empire in the 17th century BC. The city was destroyed, together with the Hittitestate itself, around 1200 BC, as part of the Bronze Age collapse. The site was subsequently abandoned. Modern estimates

put the population of the city between 40,000 and 50,000 at it’s the peak. The dwelling houses which were built with timber

and mud bricks have vanished from the site, leaving only the ruins of the stone built temples and palaces. The lost city wasrediscovered in the beginning of the 20th century in central Turkey by a German archeological team. One of the mostimportant discoveries at the site has been clay tablets, consisting of legal codes, procedures and literature of the ancient

Near East.

Read more: Turkey Guide



19Chan Chan

flickr/Bruno Girin

The vast adobe city of Chan Chan in Peru was the largest city in pre-Columbian America. The building material used wasadobe brick, and the buildings were finished with mud frequently adorned with patterned relief arabesques. The centre ofthe city consists of several walled citadels which housed ceremonial rooms, burial chambers and temples. The city was built

by the Chimu around 850 AD and lasted until its conquest by the Inca Empire in 1470 AD. It is estimated that around30,000 people lived in the city of Chan Chan.

Read more: Peru Guide

Read more: Chan Chan Guide



18Mesa Verde

flickr/Scott Ingram Photography

Mesa Verde, in southwestern Colorado, is home to the famous cliff dwellings of the ancient Anasazi people. In the 12thcentury, the Anasazi start building houses in shallow caves and under rock overhangs along the canyon walls. Some of thesehouses were as large as 150 rooms. By 1300, all of the Anasazi had left the Mesa Verde area, but the ruins remain almost

perfectly preserved. The reason for their sudden departure remains unexplained. Theories range from crop failures due todroughts to an intrusion of foreign tribes from the North.

Read more: United States Guide

Read more: Mesa Verde Guide



17Persepolis

flickr/dynamosquito

Persepolis (Capital of Persia in Greek) was the center and ceremonial capital of the mighty Persian Empire. It was a beautiful city, adorned with precious artworks of which unfortunately very little survives today. In 331 BC, Alexander theGreat, in the process of conquering the Persian Empire, burnt Persepolis to the ground as a revenge for the burning of theAcropolis of Athens. Persepolis remained the capital of Persia as a province of the great Macedonian Empire but graduallydeclined in the course of time.

Read more: Iran Guide



16Leptis Magna

flickr/Rafa http://www.micamara.es

Leptis Magna or Lepcis Magna was a prominent city of the Roman Empire, located in present-day Libya. Its natural harborfacilitated the city’s growth as a major Mediterranean and Saharan trade centre, and it also became a market for agricultural

production in the fertile coastland region. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus (193 – 211), who was born at Leptis, became a great patron of the city. Under his direction an ambitious building program was initiated. Over the followingcenturies, however, Leptis began to decline because of the increasing difficulties of the Roman Empire. After the Arabconquest of 642, the lost city fell into ruin and was buried by sand for centuries.

Read more: Libya Guide



15Urgench

flickr/martijn.munneke

Formerly situated on the Amu-Darya River in Uzbekistan, Ürgenç or Urgench was one of the greatest cities on the SilkRoad. The 12th and early 13th centuries were the golden age of Ürgenç, as it became the capital of the Central Asian empireof Khwarezm. In 1221, Genghis Khan razed Urgench to the ground. Young women and children were given to the Mongolsoldiers as slaves, and the rest of the population was massacred. The city was revived after Genghis’s destruction but thesudden change of Amu-Darya’s course to the north forced the inhabitants to leave the site forever.

Read more: Uzbekistan Guide



14Vijayanagara

flickr/ pcsjith

Vijaynagar was once one the largest cities in the world with 500,000 inhabitants. The Indian city flourished between the14th century and 16th century, during the height of the power of the Vijayanagar empire. During this time, the empire wasoften in conf lict with the Muslim kingdoms. In 1565, the empire’s armies suffered a massive and catastrophic defeat andVijayanagara was taken. The victorious Muslim armies then proceeded to raze, depopulate, and destroy the city and itsHindu temples over a period of several months. Despite the empire continuing to exist thereafter during a slow decline, theoriginal capital was not reoccupied or rebuilt. It has not been occupied since.

Read more: India Guide



13Calakmul

flickr/madmonk

Hidden inside the jungles of the Mexican state of Campeche, Calakmul is one of the largest Maya cities ever uncovered.Calakmul was a powerful city that challenged the supremacy of Tikal and engaged in a strategy of surrounding it with itsown network of allies. From the second half of the 6th century AD through to the late 7th century Calakmul gained theupper hand although it failed to extinguish Tikal’s power completely and Tikal was able to turn the tables on its great rival in a decisive battle that took place in 695 AD. Eventually both cities succumbed to the spreading Maya collapse.

Read more: Mexico Guide



12Palmyra

flickr/A travers

For centuries Palmyra (“city of palm trees”) was an important and wealthy city located along the caravan routes linking

Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria. Beginning in 212, Palmyra’s trade diminished as the Sassanidsoccupied the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built a wall and expanded the city inorder to try and save it from the Sassanid threat. The city was captured by the Muslim Arabs in 634 but kept intact. The citydeclined under Ottoman rule, reducing to no more than an oasis village. In the 17th century its location was rediscovered bywestern travelers.

Read more: Syria Guide



11Ctesiphon

wikipedia/Wikipedia

In the 6th century Ctesiphon was one of the largest city in the world and one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia.

Because of its importance, Ctesiphon was a major military objective for the Roman Empire and was captured by Rome, andlater the Byzantine Empire, five times. The city fell to the Muslims during the Islamic conquest of Persia in 637. After thefounding of the Abbasid capital at Baghdad in the 8th century the city went into a rapid decline and soon became a ghosttown. Ctesiphon is believed to be the basis for the city of Isbanir in the Thousand and One Nights. Located in Iraq, the onlyvisible remain today is the great arch Taq-i Kisra.




10Hvalsey

flickr/David Trood - Visit Greenland

Hvalsey was a farmstead of the Eastern Settlement, the largest of the three Viking settlements in Greenland. They weresettled in approximately 985 AD by Norse farmers from Iceland. At its peak the site contained approximately 4,000inhabitants. Following the demise of the Western Settlement in the mid-fourteenth century, the Eastern Settlementcontinued for another 60-70 years. In 1408 a wedding was recorded at the Hvalsey Church, but that was the last word tocome from Greenland.

Read more: Greenland Guide

Read more: Hvalsey Guide



9Ani

flickr/mx.

Situated along a major east-west caravan route, Ani first rose to prominence in the 5th century AD and had become aflourishing town and the capital of Armenia in the 10th century. The many churches built there during this period includedsome of the finest examples of medieval architecture and earned its nickname as the “City of 1001 Churches”. At its height,

Ani had a population of 100,000 to 200,000 people. It remained the chief city of Armenia until Mongol raids in the 13thcentury, a devastating earthquake in 1319, and shifting trade routes sent it into an irreversible decline. Eventually the citywas abandoned and largely forgotten for centuries. The ruins are now located in Turkey.

Read more: Turkey Guide



8Palenque

flickr/Carlos Adampol

Palenque in Mexico is much smaller than some of the other lost cities of the Mayan, but it contains some of the finestarchitecture and sculptures the Maya ever produced. Most structures in Palenque date from about 600 AD to 800 AD. Thecity declined during the 8th century. An agricultural population continued to live here for a few generations, then the lostcity was abandoned and was slowly grown over by the forest.


Read more: Palenque Guide



7Tiwanaku

flickr/ _tom_

Located near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, Tiwanaku is one of the most important precursors to theInca Empire. During the time period between 300 BC and 300 AD Tiwanaku is thought to have been a moral andcosmological center to which many people made pilgrimages. The community grew to urban proportions between the 7thand 9th centuries, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes. At its maximum extent, the city had

between 15,000 – 30,000 inhabitants although recent satellite imaging suggest a much larger population. Around 1000 AD,after a dramatic shift in climate, Tiwanaku disap peared as food production, the empire’s source of power and authority,dried up.

Read more: Bolivia Guide

Read more: Tiwanaku Guide



6Pompeii

flickr/Carlo Mirante

On August 24, 79 AD, the volcano Vesuvius erupted, covering the nearby town Pompeii with ash and soil, andsubsequently preserving the city in its state from that fateful day. Everything from jars and tables to paintings and peoplewere frozen in time. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum, were abandoned and eventually their names and locations wereforgotten. They were rediscovered as the results of excavations in the 18th century. The lost cities have provided anextraordinarily detailed insight into the life of people living two thousand years ago.

Read more: Italy Guide

Read more: Pompeii Guide



5Teotihuacan

flickr/ZeroOne

In the 2nd century BC a new civilization arose in the valley of Mexico. This civilization built the flourishing metropolis ofTeotihuacán and it’s huge step pyramids. A decline in population in the 6th century AD has been correlated to lengthydroughts related to the climate changes. Seven centuries after the demise of the Teotihuacán empire the pyramids of the lostcity were honored and utilized by the Aztecs and became a place of pilgrimage.


Read more: Teotihuacan Guide



4Petra

wikipedia/Pir6mon

Petra, the fabled “rose red city, half as old as time”, was the ancient capital of the Nabataean kingdom. A vast, unique city,carved into the side of the Wadi Musa Canyon in southern Jordan centuries ago by the Nabataeans, who turned it into animportant junction for the silk and spice routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Greece and Rome.After several earthquakes crippled the vital water management system the city was almost completely abandoned in the 6thcentury. After the Crusades, Petra was forgotten in the Western world until the lost city was rediscovered by the Swisstraveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.

Read more: Jordan Guide

Read more: Petra Guide



3Tikal

flickr/Piers Canadas

Between ca. 200 to 900 AD, Tikal was the largest Mayan city with an estimated population between 100,000 and 200,000inhabitants. As Tikal reached peak population, the area around the city suffered deforestation and erosion followed by arapid decline in population levels. Tikal lost the majority of its population during the period from 830 to 950 and centralauthority seems to have collapsed rapidly. After 950, Tikal was all but deserted, although a small population may havesurvived in huts among the ruins. Even these people abandoned the city in the 10th or 11th centuries and the Guatemalanrainforest claimed the ruins for the next thousand years.

Read more: Guatemala Guide

Read more: Tikal Guide



2Angkor

Angkor is a vast temple city in Cambodia featuring the magnificent remains of several capitals of the Khmer Empire, fromthe 9th to the 15th century AD. These include the famous Angkor Wat temple, the world’s largest single religiousmonument, and the Bayon temple (at Angkor Thom) with its multitude of massive stone faces. During its long historyAngkor went through many changes in religion converting between Hinduism to Buddhism several times. The end of theAngkorian period is generally set as 1431, the year Angkor was sacked and looted by Ayutthaya invaders, though thecivilization already had been in decline. Nearly all of Angkor was abandoned, except for Angkor Wat, which remained aBuddhist shrine.

Read more: Cambodia Guide

Read more: Angkor Guide



1Machu Picchu

flickr/Pedro Szekely

One of the most famous lost cities in the world, Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911 by Hawaiian historian Hiram afterit lay hidden for centuries above the Urubamba Valley. The “Lost City of the Incas” is invisible from below and completelyself-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces and watered by natural springs. Although known locally in Peru, it waslargely unknown to the outside world before being rediscovered in 1911.

http://www.touropia.com/explore/peru/machu-picchu/




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34 Lost Cities Forgotten by Time.pdf