Paititi

Paititi
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The Amazon has also lured explorers with tales of magnificent cities hidden within. British adventurer Percy Fawcett disappeared there in 1925 while searching for one he called the Lost City of Z. Another that may or may not have been found is the legendary Paititi – which may have been the same one Fawcett was looking for and which also shares similarities with stories of El Dorado. In addition to Fawcett, the search for Paititi has claimed the lives of many explorers who went looking for it.

But it may be a real place: in 2001, an Italian archaeologist found a report hidden in the Vatican archives from a 17th-century missionary, who came across a wealthy city the indigenous people called Paititi. This gave credence to the legend, and modern archaeologists have been looking for it since. Satellite imagery from 2012 located what appears to be a man-made ‘square mountain’ in the region, and expeditions through the difficult rainforest terrain are in the works to explore the area further.

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Mesa Verde, Colorado

Mesa Verde, Colorado
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Yet another legendary city of gold, Cibola, sent Francisco Vásquez de Coronado on a fruitless quest across the American West in the 1540s. But although it wasn’t made of gold, Mesa Verde was a magnificent real-life lost city hidden in the rocks, rediscovered in 1888 by cowboy brothers looking for stray cattle. Although some white people may have been there before, these brothers are generally credited for the find. The home of Ancestral Pueblo people for 700 years, Mesa Verde was abandoned in the 1200s as the people migrated to different areas. First excavated as an archaeological site in 1909, Mesa Verde is now a national park. In 2019, some artefacts taken form the site by a Swedish researcher in the 1890s and displayed in a museum in Finland were repatriated to Native American tribes associated with the site.

Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt

Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt
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And now for a real-life lost city found beneath the sea: the ancient Egyptian port of Thonis, also known by its Greek name Heracleion (which was originally thought to be a different city). It sank into the Mediterranean near the mouth of the Nile 1500 years ago, likely after a flood, taking with it huge 5-metre statues of Pharaoh Ptolemy II, his queen, and the god Hapy. The city was mentioned in classical texts, including those of the historian Herodotus, and Helen of Troy was even said to have made a visit here.

But after the city disappeared below the waves, no one knew where it was. A British air force pilot thought he spotted a sunken city in the location in 1933, which led to new exploration of the area. French archaeologist Franck Goddio found it in 2000 after searching for years. Because the site is so new, there’s lots more to explore: in 2019, researchers found a previously unseen temple along with jewellery and coins. It’s one of the most incredible undersea treasures ever found.

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Troy, Turkey

Troy, Turkey
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Speaking of the legendary beauty Helen of Troy, the city – and possibly the war named after it – was real, and not just a story told in Homer’s ancient Greek poem The Iliad. Centuries after the city’s decline and gradual abandonment, the site was believed to be in northwest Turkey near the Aegean Sea, but no one could agree on exactly where. In the 19th century, a series of expeditions set out to find it – and find it German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (probably) did in the 1870s, on a hill called Hissarlik. The hill actually contains layers of many cities built over thousands of years, which likely included the one described in The Iliad – except that Schliemann removed that layer during his excavations. The ruins of Homer’s Troy were thought to be lost forever, until the 1990s, when archaeologist Manfred Kormann found more of it, as the city was much larger than previously believed.

As for the Trojan War, archaeologists have found some evidence of a battle, but it’s still not clear if it’s from that Trojan War. And the Trojan horse? It remains in the realm of myth.

Camelot

Camelot
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The legend of King Arthur and Camelot reveals how the line between myth and history can be blurred. Arthur first shows up in poems, stories and songs dating from around 800 CE. And several sites around the British Isles linked to the tales do have archaeological evidence of old castles and settlements, but nothing to connect them directly to the mythical king or prove the site is Camelot. For example, Titagel Castle in Cornwall was said to be the birthplace of Arthur – according to a medieval writer of (fictional) Arthurian tales. And although artefacts have been discovered at Titagel, it’s still just conjecture. Winchester Castle in Hampshire displays King Arthur’s “authentic” round table…except it’s from around 1300, way after Arthur supposedly lived. As lovely as it would be to think Camelot is real, it’s probably not.

Persepolis, Iran

Persepolis, Iran
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The well-preserved “city of the Persians,” also called Takht-e Jamshid, was built by the ancient Archaemenid (Persian) empire around 500 BCE. Although it was sacked and mostly destroyed by Alexander the Great 200 years later, much of the central part of the city still survives today. After Alexander laid waste to Persepolis, it was eventually forgotten; then in the late Middle Ages, the ruined city was mentioned in the writings of European travellers. But it still wasn’t recognised as the Persepolis of classical texts until around 1600. Archaeological research then had to wait a few more centuries: Persepolis wasn’t excavated until the 1930s by University of Chicago archaeologist Emil Herzfeld, who described the city as “the glory of the Persian world.”

Xanadu, China

Xanadu, China
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The mystical city of Xanadu is another case of fact and fiction mingling. The idea of a city of pleasure called Xanadu comes from the 1816 poem  Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was inspired by an account of the explorer Marco Polo’s visit to the real-life Xanadu in China. Got that? Coleridge wrote, “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure-dome decree…” The grandson of Mongol leader Genghis Khan, Kublai (note the spelling difference from Coleridge’s poem) Khan did exist, and he did build a summer capital called Xanadu – or, more properly, Shangdu – in the 13th century. Two hundred years later, it was abandoned after the fall of the dynasty. Largely forgotten for centuries, the site was recorded by British travellers in the 19th century, but it wasn’t excavated until the 1990s.

Tanis, Egypt

Tanis, Egypt
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Everyone knows about the remarkable discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s – yet an equally impressive find has been forgotten even in modern times. The ancient Egyptian city of Tanis held the pharaoh’s wealth and royal burial chambers until the prosperous city found the Nile’s waters shifting away. It declined, eventually fading into obscurity. Although an ancient city was thought to be hidden somewhere in the area, it sat undisturbed until French archaeologist Pierre Montet identified Tanis and found three undisturbed royal tombs there in 1939 after more than a decade of searching.

This should have surpassed the buzz about King Tut’s tomb, but unfortunately, World War II started up and buried the headline – just as the city itself had been buried. The find never received the recognition it deserved; although in the 1930s-set Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, a fictional version of Tanis is mentioned as a lost city the Nazis discover while searching for the Ark of the Covenant.

El Mirador, Guatemala

El Mirador, Guatemala
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Tikal may receive much of the attention as one of the largest and most impressive Maya ruins, rediscovered by Europeans during an 1848 expedition. (The Spanish conquistadors supposedly marched right by in the 16th century without noticing.) But recently a new Maya site in Guatemala is gaining much excitement in the archaeological world: El Mirador.  Although local people knew of the city’s existence, it was only rediscovered in 1926, but then forgotten again until a recent series of expeditions that began in 2003.

A huge structure, the largest Maya pyramid ever found can be seen from the air popping out from the thick jungle, but much of the site is still hidden by the forest, waiting to be uncovered. El Mirador is already changing what scholars thought they knew about the Maya: the dating of the site’s architecture, pottery and other finds are way more sophisticated than thought possible for the “pre-classic” period.

Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan

Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan
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One of the oldest rediscovered cities in the world, this Indus Valley Civilisation settlement dates from 2500 BCE – but the people who lived here still remain a mystery. The city is huge and well-organised, and it even has a sewer system; but the absence of temples or royal palaces suggest an egalitarian society. After 600 years, the city was abandoned for unknown reasons, possibly because of a change in the path of the Indus River that supplied the city with water. Mohenjo-daro’s ruins remained untouched for 4000 years, until Indian archaeologist R.D. Banerji rediscovered them in 1922 while surveying the area.

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