Жоғалған қалалар және олардың тарихы

Human settlement that has become extensively or completely uninhabited

A lost city is an urban settlement that fell into terminal decline and became extensively or completely uninhabited, with the consequence that the site's former significance was no longer known to the wider world. The locations of many lost cities have been forgotten, but some have been rediscovered and studied extensively by scientists. Recently abandoned cities or cities whose location was never in question might be referred to as ruins or ghost towns. Smaller settlements may be referred to as abandoned villages. The search for such lost cities by European explorers and adventurers in Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia from the 15th century onwards eventually led to the development of archaeology. Lost cities generally fall into two broad categories: those where all knowledge of the city's existence was forgotten before it was rediscovered, and those whose memory was preserved in myth, legend, or historical records but whose location was lost or at least no longer widely recognized.

Cities may become lost for a variety of reasons including natural disasters, economic or social upheaval, or war. The Incan capital city of Vilcabamba was destroyed and depopulated during the Spanish conquest of Peru in 1572. The Spanish did not rebuild the city, and the location went unrecorded and was forgotten until it was rediscovered through a detailed examination of period letters and documents. Troy was a city located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey. It is best known for being the focus of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. Repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, the city slowly declined and was abandoned in the Byzantine era. Buried by time, the city was consigned to the realm of legend until the location was first excavated in the 1860s. Other settlements are lost with few or no clues to their abandonment. For example, Malden Island, in the central Pacific, was deserted when first visited by Europeans in 1825, but the remains of temples and other structures on the island indicate that a population of Polynesians had lived there for perhaps several generations in the past. Typically this lack of information is due to a lack of surviving written or oral histories and a lack of archaeological data as in the case of the remote and fairly unknown Malden Island.

With the development of archaeology and the application of modern techniques, many previously lost cities have been rediscovered. Machu Picchu is a pre Columbian Inca site situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World. Machu Picchu was built around 1450, at the height of the Inca Empire. It was abandoned just over 100 years later, in 1572, as a belated result of the Spanish Conquest. It is possible that most of its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by travelers before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the area. In 1911, Melchor Arteaga led the explorer Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu, which had been largely forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the immediate valley. Nevertheless, Peruvian explorer and farmer Agustín Lizárraga predated this discovery by 9 years, having found the Inca site on July 14, 1902. He left a charcoal inscription bearing the words "A. Lizárraga 1902". Helike was an ancient Greek city that sank at night in the winter of 373 BCE. The city was located in Achaea, Northern Peloponnesos, two kilometres (12 stadia) from the Corinthian Gulf. The city was thought to be legend until 2001, when it was rediscovered in the Helike Delta. In 1988, the Greek archaeologist Dora Katsonopoulou launched the Helike Project to locate the site of the lost city. In 1994, in collaboration with the University of Patras, a magnetometer survey was carried out in the midplain of the delta, which revealed the outlines of a buried building. In 1995, this target was excavated (now known as the Klonis site), and a large Roman building with standing walls was brought to light.

Carthage – initially a Phoenician city in Tunisia, destroyed and then rebuilt by Rome. Later served as the capital of the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa, before being destroyed by the Arabs after its capture in 697 CE. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Dougga, Tunisia – Roman city located in present day Tunisia. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Leptis Magna – Roman city located in present day Libya. It was the birthplace of Emperor Septimius Severus, who lavished an extensive public works program on the city, including diverting the course of a nearby river. The river later returned to its original course, burying much of the city in silt and sand. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Timgad, Algeria – Roman city founded by the emperor Trajan around 100 CE, covered by sand in the 7th century. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Aoudaghost, Mauritania – wealthy Berber city in medieval Ghana.

Xanadu, China – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Kumari Kandam – a fictional lost continent south of India.

Lumbini – located in Rupandehi district, birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sinja Valley – located in Jumla district, capital city of medieval Khasa Kingdom and origin of Khas (Nepali) language. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Naga Puram – located in Pakistan's Sindh province, a city of the Indus Valley civilization. The city was on the banks of the Ghaghara River.

Anuradhapura – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sigiriya – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Polonnaruwa – now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Noreia – the capital of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Noricum. Possibly in southern Austria or Slovenia.

Daorson – the capital of ancient Illyrian community in present day Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Perperikon – the megalith complex had been laid in ruins and re erected many times in history – from the Bronze Age until Middle Ages. Seuthopolis – an ancient Thracian city, discovered and excavated in 1948. It was founded by king Seuthes III around 325 BC. Its ruins are now located at the bottom of the Koprinka Reservoir near the city of Kazanlak.

Heraclea somewhere in the Adriatic on the Croatian coast. Exact location unknown.

Quentovic – In 842, the ancient port of Quentovicus was destroyed by a Viking fleet. Thérouanne – In 1553, the city was razed, the roads broken up and the fields ploughed and salted by command of Charles V.

Avar Ring – central stronghold of the Avars, it is believed to have been in the wide plain between the Danube and the Tisza.

Kaupang – In Viksfjord near Larvik, Norway. Largest trading city around the Oslo Fjord during the Viking age. As sea levels retreated (the shoreline is 7m lower today than in 1000) the city was no longer accessible from the ocean and was abandoned.

Conímbriga – early trading post dating to the 9th century BC. Abandoned in the 8th century AD.

Sarmisegetuza Regia – the old capital of the Ancient Dacian Kingdom. Vicina – a port on the Danube, near the Delta. Orașul de Floci – a former trading town on the Danube.

Stari Ras – one of the first capitals of the medieval Serbian state of Raška, abandoned in the 13th century.

Myšia Hôrka (near Spišský Štvrtok) – 3500 years old town (rediscovered in the 20th century) and archaeological site.

Amaya – either the capital or one of the most important cities of the Cantabri. Probably located in what nowadays is called "Amaya Peak" in Burgos, northern Spain. Cypsela – drowned Ibero Greek settlement in the Catalan shore, Spain. Mentioned by Greek, Roman and Medieval chroniclers. Reccopolis – one of the capital cities founded in Hispania by the Visigoths. The site was incrementally abandoned in the 10th century. Tartessos – a harbor city or an economical complex of small harbors and trade routes set on the mouth of the Guadalquivir river, in modern Andalusia, Spain. Tartessos is believed to be either the seat of an independent kingdom or a community of palatial cities devoted to exporting the mineral resources of the Hispanic mainland to the sea, to meet the Phoenician and Greek traders. Its destruction is still a matter of debate among historians, and one modern tendency tends to believe that Tartessos was never a city, but a culture complex.

L'Anse aux Meadows – Viking settlement founded around 1000. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Lost Villages – The Lost Villages are ten communities (Aultsville, Dickinson's Landing, Farran's Point, Maple Grove, Mille Roches, Moulinette, Santa Cruz, Sheek's Island, Wales, Woodlands) in the Canadian province of Ontario, in the former townships of Cornwall and Osnabruck (now South Stormont) near Cornwall, which were permanently submerged by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958.

Port Royal, Jamaica – Destroyed by the 1692 Jamaica earthquake.

La Venta – In the present day Mexican state of Tabasco. San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán – In the present day Mexican state of Veracruz.

Teotihuacan – Pre Aztec Mexico. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Izapa – Chief city of the Izapa civilization, whose territory extended from the Gulf Coast across to the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, in present day Mexico, and Guatemala. Guayabo – In Costa Rica. It is believed that the site was inhabited from 1500 BCE to 1400 CE, and had at its peak a population of around 10,000.

Choquequirao – One of the last bastions of Incan resistance against the Spaniards and refuge of Manco Inca Yupanqui. Machu Picchu – Possibly Pachacuti's Family Palace. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Vilcabamba – Currently known as Espiritu Pampa, the capital of the Neo Inca State (1539–1572). Vitcos – Currently known as Rosaspata, a residence and ceremonial center of the Neo Inca State.