You'd think they'd be hard to misplace, but more than one city has been lost over the millennia. Don your pith helmet and take a look at...
The City of TroyFeaturing in Homer's Iliad (a 3,000 year old story-poem of love and war) the city of Troy was assumed by many to be a myth. But while the jury is still out on whether the Trojan war was pure fiction, Troy itself has been found.
The site of Troy can be found in the northwest corner of Turkey. Evidence of settlement dates back to 3,000 BCE - a total of nine "layers" of Troy have been identified, each having fallen victim to disaster or upheaval and subsequently rebuilt. Though the coastline has since moved, Troy once sat at the entrance of the Dardanelles strait. Ships waiting for favorable conditions would have been a captive market for the city.
With time Troy shrunk in stature until it was a simply a Greek village known as Ilion (though it seems to have managed a bit of a tourist trade from the Romans and Greeks enamored by the Iliad) and then a crumbling, forgotten ruin. Eventually it was covered by the earth, existing as a nondescript hill called Hissarlik and ignored by archaeologists in favor of the more promising looking tumuli (mounds) of the surrounding plains.
That all changed when businessman Heinrich Schliemann turned up looking to find the lost city and local landowner Frank Calvert persuaded him to try Hissarlik. According to the Iliad, the Greeks used a giant wooden horse to smuggle troops inside the walls of Troy. Schliemann took a different approach and used the expertise of a railway engineer and TNT to carve his way into the ruins!
The dig metaphorically and literally struck gold, unearthing treasure and jewelry (Schliemann enthusiastically and inaccurately claimed) worn by Helen of Troy. Something of a showman, he had his Greek wife model the jewelry and distributed photos to bolster his claims.
Matthiae organized an excavation of the mound in 1964, identifying the area as the lost city of Elba in 1968. Excavations continued uninterrupted until 2010 - and only stopped due to conflict in the area. The ruins of Ebla sit 33 miles southwest of Aleppo in Syria but as one of the mightiest settlements of the time (2600–2240 BCE) Ebla's sphere of influence spanned from Africa to Iran.
They seemed to have limited-term non-hereditary kings, advised by a council of elders. They were Canaanite, polytheistic and fanatical archivists. We know this because the archives of Ebla were recorded on clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform (around 17,000 have been discovered so far) and were still sitting in order on their shelves!
Prosperity breeds enemies - the city was burned to the ground in 2240 BCE, though a decorated Egyptian bone scepter suggests the rebuilt settlement kept some prestige. The city faded from the historical record around around 1650–1600 BCE, during a period of upheaval in the Middle East.
The Skyline Cities of the Silk RoadsThe silk roads were a massive network of trade routes, reaching from Britain and Scandinavia all the way to East Asia and Madagascar. With huge amounts of footfall and wealth, some settlements were bound to spring up along the way. Sitting in the center of the "cross" formed by the silk roads is Uzbekistan - and high in the Uzbek mountains are the ruins of two cities that supplied the convoys.
Tashbulak is the smaller of the pair at a mere 12 hectares sitting 2,200m above sea level. In contrast, Tugunbulak sits over 2,000m above sea level and covers around 120 hectares. The settlement featured fortifications and used terraces to make the most of the sloping ground. Tungunbulak was discovered when a local official noted that he'd found similar bits of pottery in his garden to those uncovered at Tashbulak - he'd been living on a buried city!
As for why the cities were built at high altitude, researchers believe that it was to catch the wind. Iron ore from the mountains could be smelted in fires fanned by the rushing mountain air and sold to the caravans. This may also have been the downfall of the settlements - burning the local juniper forests for fuel could have exposed the mountainside to erosion, causing flash-floods and avalanches.
Fragments of human bone nestle between megaliths carved with foxes, lions, scorpions and vultures. The hill overlooks part of the Fertile Crescent, a region blessed with a mild climate and rich arable land that would have offered attractive grazing to game. Researchers believe that the site was an open-air temple that would have served as shrine and burial mound to the hunter-gatherer cultures of the crescent.
The temple would have required specialized craftsmen (carving a decorated monolith with stone tools would not have been simple) and may indicate a transition between nomadic and settled cultures. In essence, constructing the temple may have shown the builders how to make a town.
Attempting traditional archaeology in these areas is incredibly difficult. As well as the logistical problems and survival hazards, even things a few steps away can prove nearly impossible to see. These ruins were found using LIDAR (light detection and ranging) to build up a topographical map of the landscape.
Typically deployed from a helicopter or small plane, LIDAR uses the delay from reflected laser pulses to build a picture of the landscape - one that would otherwise be masked by foliage. LIDAR of Upano Valley revealed 5 large and 10 small settlements, linked by roads and bounded by flat and terraced crop fields complete with drainage canals. Researchers believe the cities were flourishing around the same time as the Roman Empire!
- The city of Troy
- Tell Mardikh and the city of Ebla
- The skyline cities of the silk roads
- The Neolithic Göbekli Tepe
- The valley of the lost cities
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| It's not always easy to spot ruins... (MARXCINE) |
The City of TroyFeaturing in Homer's Iliad (a 3,000 year old story-poem of love and war) the city of Troy was assumed by many to be a myth. But while the jury is still out on whether the Trojan war was pure fiction, Troy itself has been found.
The site of Troy can be found in the northwest corner of Turkey. Evidence of settlement dates back to 3,000 BCE - a total of nine "layers" of Troy have been identified, each having fallen victim to disaster or upheaval and subsequently rebuilt. Though the coastline has since moved, Troy once sat at the entrance of the Dardanelles strait. Ships waiting for favorable conditions would have been a captive market for the city.
With time Troy shrunk in stature until it was a simply a Greek village known as Ilion (though it seems to have managed a bit of a tourist trade from the Romans and Greeks enamored by the Iliad) and then a crumbling, forgotten ruin. Eventually it was covered by the earth, existing as a nondescript hill called Hissarlik and ignored by archaeologists in favor of the more promising looking tumuli (mounds) of the surrounding plains.
That all changed when businessman Heinrich Schliemann turned up looking to find the lost city and local landowner Frank Calvert persuaded him to try Hissarlik. According to the Iliad, the Greeks used a giant wooden horse to smuggle troops inside the walls of Troy. Schliemann took a different approach and used the expertise of a railway engineer and TNT to carve his way into the ruins!
The dig metaphorically and literally struck gold, unearthing treasure and jewelry (Schliemann enthusiastically and inaccurately claimed) worn by Helen of Troy. Something of a showman, he had his Greek wife model the jewelry and distributed photos to bolster his claims.
Tell Mardikh and the City of Ebla
It was a chain of chances that led to the rediscovery of Ebla. Local farmers had uncovered a stone basin at Tell (meaning "mound") Mardikh and passed it on to the Aleppo museum. There it waited until it caught the curiosity of visiting archaeologist Paolo Matthiae.Matthiae organized an excavation of the mound in 1964, identifying the area as the lost city of Elba in 1968. Excavations continued uninterrupted until 2010 - and only stopped due to conflict in the area. The ruins of Ebla sit 33 miles southwest of Aleppo in Syria but as one of the mightiest settlements of the time (2600–2240 BCE) Ebla's sphere of influence spanned from Africa to Iran.
They seemed to have limited-term non-hereditary kings, advised by a council of elders. They were Canaanite, polytheistic and fanatical archivists. We know this because the archives of Ebla were recorded on clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform (around 17,000 have been discovered so far) and were still sitting in order on their shelves!
Prosperity breeds enemies - the city was burned to the ground in 2240 BCE, though a decorated Egyptian bone scepter suggests the rebuilt settlement kept some prestige. The city faded from the historical record around around 1650–1600 BCE, during a period of upheaval in the Middle East.
 |
| The Silk Road passed through some rough terrain... (WaSZI) |
The Skyline Cities of the Silk RoadsThe silk roads were a massive network of trade routes, reaching from Britain and Scandinavia all the way to East Asia and Madagascar. With huge amounts of footfall and wealth, some settlements were bound to spring up along the way. Sitting in the center of the "cross" formed by the silk roads is Uzbekistan - and high in the Uzbek mountains are the ruins of two cities that supplied the convoys.
Tashbulak is the smaller of the pair at a mere 12 hectares sitting 2,200m above sea level. In contrast, Tugunbulak sits over 2,000m above sea level and covers around 120 hectares. The settlement featured fortifications and used terraces to make the most of the sloping ground. Tungunbulak was discovered when a local official noted that he'd found similar bits of pottery in his garden to those uncovered at Tashbulak - he'd been living on a buried city!
As for why the cities were built at high altitude, researchers believe that it was to catch the wind. Iron ore from the mountains could be smelted in fires fanned by the rushing mountain air and sold to the caravans. This may also have been the downfall of the settlements - burning the local juniper forests for fuel could have exposed the mountainside to erosion, causing flash-floods and avalanches.
The Neolithic Göbekli Tepe
Mere miles outside Urfa in Turkey sits Göbekli Tepe, a hill inundated with circles of standing stones. The 11,000 year old site pre-dates Stonehenge by 6,000 years, but in the 1960s Chicago and Istanbul anthropologists dismissed it as the remnants of a medieval cemetery.Fragments of human bone nestle between megaliths carved with foxes, lions, scorpions and vultures. The hill overlooks part of the Fertile Crescent, a region blessed with a mild climate and rich arable land that would have offered attractive grazing to game. Researchers believe that the site was an open-air temple that would have served as shrine and burial mound to the hunter-gatherer cultures of the crescent.
The temple would have required specialized craftsmen (carving a decorated monolith with stone tools would not have been simple) and may indicate a transition between nomadic and settled cultures. In essence, constructing the temple may have shown the builders how to make a town.
The Valley of the Lost Cities
Hidden beneath the tangled vegetation of Ecuador’s Upano Valley rests a network of ruins - the remains of cities built 2,500 years ago. That's more than 1,000 years older than any other known complex Amazonian civilization.Attempting traditional archaeology in these areas is incredibly difficult. As well as the logistical problems and survival hazards, even things a few steps away can prove nearly impossible to see. These ruins were found using LIDAR (light detection and ranging) to build up a topographical map of the landscape.
Typically deployed from a helicopter or small plane, LIDAR uses the delay from reflected laser pulses to build a picture of the landscape - one that would otherwise be masked by foliage. LIDAR of Upano Valley revealed 5 large and 10 small settlements, linked by roads and bounded by flat and terraced crop fields complete with drainage canals. Researchers believe the cities were flourishing around the same time as the Roman Empire!
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