OST CITI ES LOST CITI ES
great lost cities of the ancient world
What is a lost city? LOST CITY is a term that is generally considered to refer to a well-populated area which fell into terminal decline, became extensively or completely uninhabited, and whose location has been forgotten. Some lost cities whose locations have been rediscovered have been studied extensively by scientists. Recently abandoned cities or cities whose location was never in question might be referred to as ruins or ghost towns. The search for such lost cities by European explorers and adventurers in the Americas, Africa and in Southeast Asia from the 15th century onwards eventually led to the development of archaeology. Lost cities generally fall into two broad categories: 1. No knowledge of the city existed until the time of its rediscovery 2. Location has been lost but knowledge of its existence has been retained in myths, legends, or historical records. Cities become lost for a variety of reasons including natural disasters, economic or social upheaval, or war. With the development of archaeology and the application of modern techniques, many previously lost cities have been rediscovered.
2 | Lost Cities
Exp lore 4| Angkor Wat, cambodia
8| Pompeii, Italy
10| World Map Where in the world? 12| Machu Picchu, Peru
15| Atlantis Fact or Fiction?
Table of Contents | 3
ANgkOR WAT 4 | Lost Cities
The
Immortal Temples • cambodia
In the thick jungle undergrowth of Indochina, there are lost ruins—giant blocks of carved stone choked by vines and trampled on by the giant roots of giant trees.
Built between roughly A.D. 1113 and
1150, and encompassing an area of about 500 acres (200 hectares), Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious monuments ever constructed. Its name means “temple city.” Originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu, it was converted into a Buddhist temple in the 14th century, and statues of Buddha were added to its already rich artwork.
Its 213-foot-tall (65 meters) central tower is surrounded by four smaller towers and a series of enclosure walls, a layout that recreates the image of Mount Meru, a legendary place in Hindu mythology that is said to lie beyond the Himalayas and be the home of the gods. The city where the temple was built, Angkor, is located in modern-day Cambodia and was once the capital of the Khmer Empire. This urban center contains hundreds of temples and a population that has been estimated to be as high as 1 million people. It was easily the largest city in the world until the industrial revolution. The Layout The temple is surrounded by a 650-footwide (200 meters) moat that encompasses a perimeter of more than 3 miles (5 km). This moat is 13 feet deep (4 meters) and would have helped stabilize the temple’s foundation, preventing groundwater from rising too high or falling too low. Ankgor Wat | 5
Angkor Bayon Khmer Statues Angkor Wat’s main entrance was to the west (a direction associated with Vishnu) across a stone causeway, with guardian lions marking the way. To the east of the temple was a second, more modest, entrance. The heart of the temple was the central tower, entered by way of a steep staircase, a statue of Vishnu at top. This tower “was at once the symbolic center of the nation and the actual center where secular and sacred power joined forces,” writes researcher Eleanor Mannikka in the book “Angkor: Celestial Temples of the Khmer Empire” (Abbeville Press, 2002). “From that unparalleled space, Vishnu and the king ruled over the Khmer people.” •
6 | Lost Cities
“At Ongcor, there are ...ruins of such grandeur... that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?”
Henri Mouhot Explorer
EII II PE P OM P POMPEI I Pompeii | 7
“Darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a dark room,”
The city of Pompeii was an ancient Ro-
of a city during the Pax Romana. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids between the ash layers that once held human bodies. This allowed one to see the exact position the person was in when they died. Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years and today, the UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year.
man town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Pompeii along with Herculaneum and many The Account villas in the surrounding It is mainly thanks to area, were mostly dein the the vivid eye-witness stroyed and buried unaccount of the younger der 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 Pliny (a Roman ft) of ash and pumice in administrator and poet, the eruption of Mount whose many vivid letters Vesuvius in 79 AD. • have been preserved), that italy we have some understandPompeii was lost for about ing of what happened. And it is 1500 years until its initial redisthrough him that we can gain insight covery in 1599 and broader rediscovery into the reactions and feelings of the almost 150 years later by the Spanish people caught up in the drama of this engineer, Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre natural catastrophe. in 1748. The objects that lay beneath the city have been well preserved for thouPliny’s account leaves no doubt that evsands of years because of the lack of air eryone was caught unprepared. His uncle, and moisture. These artifacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life known as Pliny the Elder, was stationed
City
Ashes
8 | Lost Cities
in command of the imperial naval base at Misenum, on the north-west extremity of the Bay of Naples. He was not only the senior military officer in the district, but possibly the most well informed living Roman on matters of natural science. His 37-volume Natural History is the longest work on science in Latin that has survived from antiquity. But for all his science and his seniority, his nephew tells us that the elder Pliny was relaxing, after a bath and lunch, when Vesuvius started to erupt. And the sighting of a column of smoke ‘like an umbrella pine’ on the far side of the Bay triggered a response more of curiosity than of alarm in him. He and his companions were evidently not anticipating such an event. The same account reveals, however, that the signs were there. Pliny’s casual reference to earth tremors ‘which were not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania’ reveals the Roman’s comprehensive ignorance of the link between seismic activity (earth tremors) and volcanic activity. •
From the House of Terentius Neo, Pompeii. AD 50 to 79 Pompeii | 9
World Map
Machu P icchu Peru, South America 15th Century incan 10 | Lost Cities
Naples, Italy 7th Cent BC-1st Cent AD Ancient Rome
Pompei i
Angkor Wat Angkor, Cambodia 12th Century Khmer Empire World Map | 11
Citadel of the
Clouds • Peru A citadel of cut stone fit together without mortar, the ruins lie on a high ridge, surrounded on three sides by the windy, turbulent Urubamba River some 2,000 feet (610 meters) below.
Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) is a 15th-
century Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. Machu Picchu is located in the Cusco Region of Peru, South America. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cusco and through which the 12 | Lost Cities
Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as the “City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of Inca civilization. Discovery The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then,
MAchu P icchu
Machu Picchu | 13
Alpacas on the hillside “Surprise followed surprise until there came the realization that we were in the midst of as wonderful ruins as any ever found in Peru... It is possible that not even the conquistadors ever saw this wonderful place.”
Hiram Bingham III Explorer
Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like. By 1976, thirty percent of Machu Picchu had been restored. The restoration work continues to this day. Since the site was not known to the Spanish during their conquest, it is highly significant as a relatively intact cultural site. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a 14 | Lost Cities
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll. Structure Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its three primary structures are the Intihuatana (Hitching post of the Sun), the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is vulnerable to threats from a variety of sources. While natural phenomena like earthquakes and weather systems can play havoc with access, the site also suffers from the pressures of too many tourists. In addition, preservation of the area’s cultural and archaeological heritage is an ongoing concern. Most notably, the removal of cultural artifacts by the Bingham expeditions in the early 20th century gave rise to a long-term dispute between the government of Peru and the custodian of the artifacts, Yale University. •
Fact Or FI cti on
Atlantis Atlantis (in Greek, “island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato’s
dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC. According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying “in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean “in a single day and night of misfortune". Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato’s story or account was inspired by older traditions. In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC. In Egypt, Solon met a priest of Sais, who translated the history of ancient Athens and Atlantis, recorded on papyri in Egyptian hieroglyphs, into Greek. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC. The possible existence of a genuine Atlantis was discussed throughout classical antiquity, but it was usually rejected and occasionally parodied by later authors. Alan Cameron states: “It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity". The Timaeus remained known in a Latin rendition by Calcidius through the Middle Ages, and the allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up by Humanists in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis and Thomas More’s Utopia. Atlantis inspires today’s literature, from science fiction to comic books to films. Its name has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations. • Atlantis | 15
Janelle Wen 2013