Discovering Ancient Lost Cities Discoveries of ancient cities are happening all over the globe. What I can’t get over is the fact there are so many being discovered. There is no doubt one of the reasons is the fact satellites are so proficient at exploring the earth and we have many up there using all different types of technologies to do so. Some of these satellites can detect objects under the ground while others can make sense of strange shapes. We are probably in the golden age of ancient city detection, when the most ancient cities will be detected. While archaeologists were working at Ndachjian-Tehuscan site in Tehuascan, Puebla State, Mexico they made a grisly discovery. We knew many of the ancient South American Indians were violent but this discovery reached new heights in grisliness. It seems there was a god worshipped by the people there named Xipe Totec. A statue of the god shows him wearing the skin of a sacrificial victim. This was one of their most important gods at one time. Experts said, “Its influence in the fertility, the regeneration of the agricultural cycles and the war, was recognized by numerous cultures of the West, Center and Gulf of Mexico.” This was the first temple dedicated to this god. It was built by the Popolocas between the years 1000 and 1260 A.D. Victims were killed and then they were skinned on a platform. The priests would then wear their skin while performing religious rituals. Sometimes water has overtaken a city and hidden it. This usually happens when the ocean overflows or land begins to sink. This doesn’t explain what a city was doing at the bottom of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. Titicaca is the highest lake on earth. An archaeologist from the Free University in Belgium discovered the city about ten years ago. It is not the only archaeological site in the lake, so far 24 have been identified. The most significant so far is this city named Santiago de Ojjelaya and the Bolivian government has agreed to preserve it and any related structures on land and build a museum there. When we think of ancient cities most of us don’t think of places like Kuwait, and yet a discovery of a very ancient city was made there. A 7500-year-old temple city was found. It does make one wonder what else is lying under the sand. The city was discovered on the northern coast of Kuwait Bay in eastern Kuwait. It is believed the city was built by the Ubaid civilization, a society of which very little is known. It is believed they were the first agricultural settlers to move into what became Sumer, located in the southernmost region of ancient Mesopotamia. It is said this settlement has some of the first temples. Archaeologists were very surprised by the fact it seems much planning went into the construction of the city, since it was built at such an early date. They knew this because when they studied the buildings, they noticed they were far apart. After the war with Troy, the survivors were said to have settled in the lost city of Tenea. It is ironic Troy’s location had been lost and so had the city the Trojans fled to. The city turned up in the Greek region of the Peleponnese in southern Greece. What archaeologists found excited them. There were walls and clay. Some of the buildings had marble floors while others had stone floors. There was plenty of pottery. Hundreds of coins were found. Two human fetuses were found in a pottery jar. This was a very unusual find and contrary to Greek practice because the ancient Greeks generally buried their dead outside the city in cemeteries. 2018 was the first year digging in the city took place, before that archaeologists concentrated on the cemeteries around the city. Archaeologists have been conducting a dig in a lost Viking city under Ribe, Denmark. They say deep beneath Ribe are thousands of Viking objects. After digging down over three meters, archaeologists believe they have found one of the first cities of the Nordic region. It is believed the Viking age began around the year 800 AD and they believe this since they claim they can see the changes in places like Ribe. Workshops changed and artisans and craftsmen were a lot more apparent. Technology has made it easier to interpret findings and this has made the Ribe project more valuable. Just when you think you have found all the villages and cities in ancient Egypt you find another. An ancient Egyptian village was found which predated the pyramids by 2500 years. It was found in the Nile Delta and it is believed to date back to 5000 BC. The pyramids were said to have been built around 2500 BC. It is said there was a stable community living at the site and several storage silos were found. This is how the site was dated, by the remains of the organic matter in the silos. Experts say the farmers in this community relied heavily on rain and did not have the experience with irrigation the later Egyptians had. It has been called Tell el-Samara. No mummies were found at the site. We don’t always find the locations of ancient cities. We have been looking for at least one for many years and it is the city where the Punt civilization lived. It is believed the Punts lived in Africa thousands of years ago, but we have yet to find that location. We know they existed because they are mentioned in many ancient writings. We discovered their existence first in ancient Egyptian texts. The Egyptians recorded the fact they received gold from the Punts. There are other records showing the Punts also traded with the ancient Greeks and gave them ebony, silk, gold, perfumes and other precious metals.
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