34 Lost Cities Forgotten by Time | Travel, Tours and Top Tens.
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. There are actually many
reasons why a city has to be abandoned. War, natural disasters, climate
change and the loss of important trading partners to name a few.
Whatever the cause, these lost cities were forgotten in time until they were rediscovered centuries later.
flickr/mutbka
Located in present-day Tunisia, Carthage was founded by Phoenician
colonists and became a major power in the Mediterranean. The resulting
rivalry with Syracuse and Rome was accompanied by several wars with
respective invasions of 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 remained an important city until it was destroyed a second
time in 698 AD during the Muslim conquest.
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 several small circular plazas. Members of local
tribes call the city Teyuna and believe it was the heart of a network of
villages inhabited by their forebears, the Tairona. It was apparently
abandoned during the Spanish conquest.
flickr/cwirtanen
Troy is a legendary city in what is now northwestern Turkey, made
famous in Homer’s epic poem, the Iliad. According to Iliad, this is
where the Trojan War took place. The archaeological site of Troy
contains several layers of ruins. The layer Troy VIIa was probably the
Troy of Homer and has been dated to the mid- to late-13th century BC.
flickr/chatirygirl
Located on the main island of Orkney, Skara Brae is one of the best
preserved Stone Age villages in Europe. It was covered for 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 were no trees on the island, furniture had to be made of stone and
thus also survived. Skara Brae was occupied from roughly 3180 BC–2500
BC. After the climate changed, becoming much colder and wetter, the
settlement was abandoned by its inhabitants.
flickr/IDS.photos
Memphis, founded around 3,100 BC, is the legendary city of Menes, the
King who united Upper and Lower Egypt. Early on, Memphis was more
likely a fortress from which Menes controlled the land and water routes
between Upper Egypt and the Delta. By the Third Dynasty, Saqqara had
become a sizable city. It fell successively to Nubia, Assyria, Persia,
and Macedonia under Alexander the Great. Its importance as a religious
centre was undermined by the rise of Christianity and then 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.
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 between roughly 2600 BC
and 2000 BC. Accommodating more than 3,000 inhabitants, it is one of
the largest cities of the Norte Chico civilization. It has a central
public area with six large platform mounds arranged around a huge plaza.
All of the lost cities in the Supe valley share similarities with
Caral. They had small platforms or stone circles. Caral was probably
the focus of this civilization.
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 9th century 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 broken mud-brick
buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq.
flickr/Mr.Matt
Located in northwestern Pakistan, Taxila is an ancient city that was
annexed by the Persian King Darius the Great in 518 BC. In 326 BC the
city was surrendered to Alexander the Great. Ruled by a succession of
conquerors, the city became an important Buddhist centre. The apostle
Thomas reputedly visited Taxila in the 1st century AD. Taxila’s
prosperity in ancient times resulted from its position at the junction
of three great trade routes. When they declined, the city sank into
insignificance. It was finally destroyed by the Huns in the 5th century.
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 the first united and independent Tai
state. The ancient town is reported to have had some 80,000 inhabitants.
After 1351, when Ayutthaya was founded as the capital of a powerful
rival Tai dynasty, Sukhothai’s influence began to decline, and in 1438
the town was conquered and incorporated into the Ayutthaya kingdom.
Sukhothai was abandoned in the late 15th or early 16th century.
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 a more loosely-organized fashion. In the
5th Century, the city was sacked by the Vandals and two centuries later
by the Berbers. The city disappeared from history, becoming one the
lost cities of the Roman Empire, until its excavation in 1881.
flickr/bennylin0724
Built around 2600 BC in present-day Pakistan, Mohenjo-daro was one of
the early urban settlements in the world. It is sometimes 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.
flickr/hchalkley
The Great Zimbabwe, is a complex of stone ruins spread out over a
large area in modern-day Zimbabwe, which itself is named 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 for over 300 years. At its peak, estimates are that Great
Zimbabwe had as many as 18,000 inhabitants. Causes for the decline and
ultimate abandonment of the site have been suggested as due to a decline
in trade, political instability and famine and water shortages caused
by climatic change.
wikipedia/Victrav
A large fortified city under the influence of the Parthian Empire and
capital of the first Arab Kingdom, Hatra withstood several invasions by
the Romans thanks to its high, thick walls reinforced by towers. The
city fell to the Iranian Sassanid Empire of Shapur I in 241 AD and was
destroyed. The ruins of Hatra in Iraq, especially the temples where
Hellenistic and Roman architecture blend with Eastern decorative
features, attest to the greatness of its civilization.
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 and concluding with
a series of Buddhist temples and monasteries, now in ruins, that were
build in the 10th or 11th centuries. In the 13th century, after the
decline of Buddhism in India, Sanchi was abandoned and the jungle
quickly moved in. The lost city was rediscovered in 1818 by a British
officer.
wikipedia/Wikipedia
Hattusa became the capital of the Hittite Empire in the 17th century
BC. The city was destroyed, together with the Hittite state 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 was rediscovered in the beginning of the 20th century in central
Turkey by a German archeological team. One of the most important
discoveries at the site has been clay tablets, consisting of legal
codes, procedures and literature of the ancient Near East.
flickr/Bruno Girin
The vast adobe city of Chan Chan in Peru was the largest city in
pre-Columbian America. The building material used was adobe brick, and
the buildings were finished with mud frequently adorned with patterned
relief arabesques. The centre of the 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 around 30,000
people lived in the city of Chan Chan.
flickr/Scott Ingram Photography
Mesa Verde, in southwestern Colorado, is home to the famous cliff
dwellings of the ancient Anasazi people. In the 12th century, the
Anasazi start building houses in shallow caves and under rock overhangs
along the canyon walls. Some of these houses 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 to
droughts to an intrusion of foreign tribes from the North.
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 the Great, in the process of conquering the
Persian Empire, burnt Persepolis to the ground as a revenge for the
burning of the Acropolis of Athens. Persepolis remained the capital of
Persia as a province of the great Macedonian Empire but gradually
declined in the course of time.
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 harbor facilitated 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 following
centuries, however, Leptis began to decline because of the increasing
difficulties of the Roman Empire. After the Arab conquest of 642, the
lost city fell into ruin and was buried by sand for centuries.
flickr/martijn.munneke
Formerly situated on the Amu-Darya River in Uzbekistan, Ürgenç or
Urgench was one of the greatest cities on the Silk Road. The 12th and
early 13th centuries were the golden age of Ürgenç, as it became the
capital of the Central Asian empire of Khwarezm. In 1221, Genghis Khan
razed Urgench to the ground. Young women and children were given to the
Mongol soldiers as slaves, and the rest of the population was massacred.
The city was revived after Genghis’s destruction but the sudden change
of Amu-Darya’s course to the north forced the inhabitants to leave the
site forever.
flickr/pcsjith
Vijaynagar was once one the largest cities in the world with 500,000
inhabitants. The Indian city flourished between the 14th century and
16th century, during the height of the power of the Vijayanagar empire.
During this time, the empire was often in conflict with the Muslim
kingdoms. In 1565, the empire’s armies suffered a massive and
catastrophic defeat and Vijayanagara was taken. The victorious Muslim
armies then proceeded to raze, depopulate, and destroy the city and its
Hindu temples over a period of several months. Despite the empire
continuing to exist thereafter during a slow decline, the original
capital was not reoccupied or rebuilt. It has not been occupied since.
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 its own network of allies. From the
second half of the 6th century AD through to the late 7th century
Calakmul gained the upper 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.
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 Sassanids occupied the mouth of the Tigris and the
Euphrates. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built a wall and expanded the
city in order to try and save it from the Sassanid threat. The city was
captured by the Muslim Arabs in 634 but kept intact. The city declined
under Ottoman rule, reducing to no more than an oasis village. In the
17th century its location was rediscovered by western travelers.
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, and later the Byzantine Empire, five
times. The city fell to the Muslims during the Islamic conquest of
Persia in 637. After the founding of the Abbasid capital at Baghdad in
the 8th century the city went into a rapid decline and soon became a
ghost town. Ctesiphon is believed to be the basis for the city of
Isbanir in the Thousand and One Nights. Located in Iraq, the only
visible remain today is the great arch Taq-i Kisra.
Hvalsey was a farmstead of the Eastern Settlement, the largest of the
three Viking settlements in Greenland. They were settled in
approximately 985 AD by Norse farmers from Iceland. At its peak the site
contained approximately 4,000 inhabitants. Following the demise of the
Western Settlement in the mid-fourteenth century, the Eastern Settlement
continued for another 60-70 years. In 1408 a wedding was recorded at
the Hvalsey Church, but that was the last word to come from Greenland.
flickr/mx.
Situated along a major east-west caravan route, Ani first rose to
prominence in the 5th century AD and had become a flourishing town and
the capital of Armenia in the 10th century. The many churches built
there during this period included some 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
13th century, a devastating earthquake in 1319, and shifting trade
routes sent it into an irreversible decline. Eventually the city was
abandoned and largely forgotten for centuries. The ruins are now located
in Turkey.
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 finest architecture and
sculptures the Maya ever produced. Most structures in Palenque date from
about 600 AD to 800 AD. The city declined during the 8th century. An
agricultural population continued to live here for a few generations,
then the lost city was abandoned and was slowly grown over by the
forest.
flickr/_tom_
Located near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia,
Tiwanaku is one of the most important precursors to the Inca Empire.
During the time period between 300 BC and 300 AD Tiwanaku is thought to
have been a moral and cosmological center to which many people made
pilgrimages. The community grew to urban proportions between the 7th and
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
disappeared as food production, the empire’s source of power and
authority, dried up.
flickr/Carlo Mirante
On August 24, 79 AD, the volcano Vesuvius erupted, covering the
nearby town Pompeii with ash and soil, and subsequently preserving the
city in its state from that fateful day. Everything from jars and tables
to paintings and people were frozen in time. Pompeii, along with
Herculaneum, were abandoned and eventually their names and locations
were forgotten. They were rediscovered as the results of excavations in
the 18th century. The lost cities have provided an extraordinarily
detailed insight into the life of people living two thousand years ago.
flickr/ZeroOne
In the 2nd century BC a new civilization arose in the valley of
Mexico. This civilization built the flourishing metropolis of
Teotihuacán and it’s huge step pyramids. A decline in population in the
6th century AD has been correlated to lengthy droughts related to the
climate changes. Seven centuries after the demise of the Teotihuacán
empire the pyramids of the lost city were honored and utilized by the
Aztecs and became a place of pilgrimage.
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 an important 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
6th century. After the Crusades, Petra was forgotten in the Western
world until the lost city was rediscovered by the Swiss traveler Johann
Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.
flickr/Piers Canadas
Between ca. 200 to 900 AD, Tikal was the largest Mayan city with an
estimated population between 100,000 and 200,000 inhabitants. As Tikal
reached peak population, the area around the city suffered deforestation
and erosion followed by a rapid decline in population levels. Tikal
lost the majority of its population during the period from 830 to 950
and central authority seems to have collapsed rapidly. After 950, Tikal
was all but deserted, although a small population may have survived in
huts among the ruins. Even these people abandoned the city in the 10th
or 11th centuries and the Guatemalan rainforest claimed the ruins for
the next thousand years.
Angkor is a vast temple city in Cambodia featuring the magnificent
remains of several capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the
15th century AD. These include the famous Angkor Wat temple, the world’s
largest single religious monument, and the Bayon temple (at Angkor
Thom) with its multitude of massive stone faces. During its long history
Angkor went through many changes in religion converting between
Hinduism to Buddhism several times. The end of the Angkorian period is
generally set as 1431, the year Angkor was sacked and looted by
Ayutthaya invaders, though the civilization already had been in decline.
Nearly all of Angkor was abandoned, except for Angkor Wat, which
remained a Buddhist shrine.
flickr/Pedro Szekely
One of the most famous lost cities in the world, Machu Picchu
was rediscovered in 1911 by Hawaiian historian Hiram after it lay
hidden for centuries above the Urubamba Valley. The “Lost City of the
Incas” is invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded
by agricultural terraces and watered by natural springs. Although known
locally in Peru, it was largely unknown to the outside world before
being rediscovered in 1911.
34. Carthage
flickr/mutbka33. Ciudad Perdida
flickr/Jungle_Boy32. Troy
flickr/cwirtanen31. Skara Brae
flickr/chatirygirl30. Memphis
flickr/IDS.photos29. Caral
flickr/edgar asencios28. Babylon
wikipedia/Mate Edward G.27. Taxila
flickr/Mr.Matt26. Sukhothai
flickr/antonde25. Timgad
wikipedia/Anna Stryjewska24. Mohenjo-daro
flickr/bennylin072423. Great Zimbabwe
flickr/hchalkley22. Hatra
wikipedia/Victrav21. Sanchi
flickr/mAhEsH BaSeDiA20. Hattusa
wikipedia/Wikipedia19. Chan Chan
flickr/Bruno Girin18. Mesa Verde
flickr/Scott Ingram Photography17. Persepolis
flickr/dynamosquito16. Leptis Magna
flickr/Rafa http://www.micamara.es15. Urgench
flickr/martijn.munneke14. Vijayanagara
flickr/pcsjith13. Calakmul
flickr/madmonk12. Palmyra
flickr/A travers11. Ctesiphon
wikipedia/Wikipedia10. Hvalsey
9. Ani
flickr/mx.8. Palenque
flickr/Carlos Adampol7. Tiwanaku
flickr/_tom_6. Pompeii
flickr/Carlo Mirante5. Teotihuacan
flickr/ZeroOne4. Petra
wikipedia/Pir6mon
3. Tikal
flickr/Piers Canadas2. Angkor
1. Machu Picchu
flickr/Pedro Szekely