The world is full of ruined cities, but some have such mysterious
rises and falls that they haunt our imaginations. Even if we know who
built them, certain aspects of the city may simply defy comprehension in
the modern age. Here are 8 ancient cities that we may never fully
understand.
Çatalhöyük, Turkey
In 7,500 BCE, this city in the Mesopotamian region (now Turkey) held
thousands of people and is believed by many to be one of the world’s
earliest urban settlements. But the culture of the people here was
unlike anything we know today. First of all, they built the city like a
honeycomb, with houses sharing walls. Homes and buildings were accessed
by doors cut into the roofs. People would stroll on the streets across
these roofs, and climb down ladders to get to their living quarters.
Doorways were often marked with bulls’ horns, and dead family members
were buried in the floor of each home.
Mysterious ruined cities: Çatalhöyük in Turkey. Photo: Franck Goddio
It’s not clear what happened to the culture of the people who lived in this city. Their architectural style
seems to be unique, though archaeologists have found many fertility
goddess figurines in the city that resemble others found in the region.
So it’s likely that when the city was abandoned, its culture radiated
outward into other cities in the Mesopotamian region.
Teotihuacan, Mexico
I chose Teotihuacan over Palenque. Indeed, they thrived between the 700BC through the 700AC and no one knows where they came from. But what’s best, no one
knows where they went. They were traders in the best sense of the word,
with “consulates and diplomats” from other civilizations living in
town, with a “diplomatic” district representing each tribe of the entire
Mesoamerican region. Artifacts found range from pacific side sea shells to caribbean art figures. It is known that they traded with Mayans, Olmecs and northern tribes.
It was abandoned before the rise of the Aztec empire. Nevertheless, Aztecs traveled from Tenochtitlan to Teotihuacan to hold solstice rituals and other important religious practices in the city ruins.
Mysterious ruined cities: Teotihuacan in Mexico
Highly advanced for their time, Teotihuacanons excelled in maths,
astrophysics and architecture. Also, Teotihuacan was, at it’s peak, the
largest city in the world, holding +150k people within its borders. To
date, no one is really sure about what happened to Teotihuacanos.
Theories range from diseases and famines to aliens. Maybe we’ll never
know for sure. But once you visit these ruins, you can never stop
wondering about Teotihuacan and its people…
Cahokia, United States
Located across the Mississippi River from what is today St. Louis,
Cahokia was for hundreds of years the biggest city in North America. Its
inhabitants built enormous earthen mounds — some of which you can still
visit today — and vast plazas which served as markets and meeting
places. There is strong evidence that the inhabitants had very
sophisticated agricultural practices, and that they diverted tributaries
of the Mississippi several times to water their fields.
Mysterious ruined cities: Cahokia in the USA. Photo: L.K. Townsend and Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
Like the Maya, the people of Cahokia were at their civilizational
height between 600-1400 CE. Nobody is certain why the city was
abandoned, nor how the region was able to support such a high-density
urban civilization of up to 40,000 people for hundreds of years.
Derinkuyu, Turkey
Derinkuyu is an enormous, ancient underground city that dates back to
the early Byzantine Empire. It’s unknown when the city was begun — some
sources say as early at the 7th century BCE — but it wouldn’t have
reached its greatest size until the period between 500-1000 CE, when it
was five stories deep with room for 20,000 people, plus livestock,
kitchens, a church, and a wine-making facility. Locals dug tunnels and
rooms beneath their homes, deep into the soft, sandy volcanic rock of
the central Turkish region of Cappadocia. An entire underground
civilization was thriving here during the middle ages, which could provide a model for future communities trying to survive an apocalypse.
Mysterious ruined cities: Derinkuyu in Turkey.
For centuries, people had fled to the area to find a safe haven
from anti-Christian Romans, bandits, and later, anti-Christian Muslims.
Massive rocks could be rolled across the entrances, and air shafts kept
the place ventilated while people lived inside for months at a time.
Eventually, long shafts were dug to connect Derinkuyu with other
underground cities in the area. The city was sealed up at some point
after the 10th century, and was only reopened to the public in 1969.
Pompeii, Italy
There are ample historical records that document the Roman vacation
town of Pompeii, which was entombed in ash after the catastrophic
eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. We know that the city was partially
destroyed by an earthquake years before the volcano
erupted, and that many of its greatest homes were already abandoned by
the time the final blast erased the city forever. We even know, from
historical records, that Vesuvius started smoking and causing quakes in
the days leading up to the fatal eruption. So what’s the mystery?
Mysterious ruined cities: Pompei in Italy. Photo: Shorebee
Because Pompeii was perfectly preserved in the exact configuration it
had in 79 CE, there are hundreds of historical details that are utterly
alien to contemporary eyes — including decorative penis statues, weird
graffiti, inexplicable art, and living arrangements that are unlike
anything you’d see in a modern
city. It’s one thing to read historical accounts of ancient Rome, and
another thing to walk the streets of a Roman city unchanged since the
height of the Empire. The mysteries of everyday life are often greater than the mysteries of how a civilization collapses.
Machu Picchu, Peru
A lot remains mysterious about the Inca Empire, which dominated parts
of the regions now known as Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina
for hundreds of years before the Spanish invaded, destroyed its cities,
and burned its libraries of quipu records (the Inca language was
“written” with knots and rope). Though we know a lot about Inca
technology, architecture and advanced agriculture — all of which are in
evidence at major Inca city Machu Picchu — we still can’t read what’s
left of the tapestries that contain their written records.
Mysterious ruined cities: Machu Pichu in Peru. Photo: Airpano
And we don’t understand how they ran a vast empire without ever
building a single marketplace. That’s right — Machu Picchu and other
Inca cities contain no markets. This dramatically different from most
other cities, which are often built around central market squares and
plazas. How did such a successful civilization exist without a
recognizable economy? Maybe one day we’ll discover the answers.
Thonis, Egypt
In the 8th century BCE, this legendary city was the gateway to Egypt,
a port town that was full of incredible monuments, rich merchants, and
huge buildings. Now it is entirely submerged in the Mediterranean Sea.
Thonis began its slow decline after the rise of Alexandria in the 300s
CE. But eventually that slide became literal, as the city drowned in the
sea that was once the source of its wealth. Nobody is certain how it
happened, but by the 8th century CE the city was gone.
Mysterious ruined cities: Thonis or Heracleion in Egypt. Photo: Telegraph
It may have been the victim of liquefaction after an earthquake.
Recently rediscovered by archaeologist Franck Goddio, the city is slowly
being excavated. Above is a video reconstruction of what the city might
have looked like in its heyday.
Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
One of the great mysteries of southern Africa is the enormous, walled
city known today as Great Zimbabwe. The city was home to as many as
30,000 people, and was at its peak from 1200-1450, when it was the heart
of an international trade
region that stretched as far as China and India. Wealth poured into the
city from distant lands, but it was also rich in gold from local mines
and vast herds of cattle. Still, there are some unknowns here — it’s not
clear how far the city’s influence stretched, nor what all its
industries were. Clearly, though, it was technologically advanced.
