Ancient Cities It’s amazing how many ancient cities we are finding. There seems to be a rash of them lately. It’s not as if they are all in one place, we are finding them all over the entire planet. A lot of it has to do with new techniques and devices which have been developed which lend themselves to making discovery of these places are a lot easier. One of the devices we now use is called LiDAR. It is able to see through dense jungle coverage and has been responsible for many of the latest discoveries in Central and South America. Satellites are responsible for many discoveries of large cities. They carry all sorts of tools which are useful for this purpose. Someday we may see this period of time called the Golden age of discovery. Anything connected with ancient Greece is always very interesting, and recently archaeologists in Greece have found an ancient Minoan treasure. It turns out there was a Minoan settlement on a small island in the Libyan sea. The name of the island was Chrysi which was located south of Crete and archaeologists believe the settlement was 3800 years old. They found gold jewelry, glass beads and bronze money known as talents. Not all beads were Minoan some turned out to be Egyptian. The Minoans were very interesting people and far ahead of their time. They had built a large settlement on the island of Santorini somewhere between the year 2000 and 1600 BC. They actually had apartment buildings and indoor flush toilets and were probably the most advanced race on the planet at the time. It’s funny, when I think of Israel, I think of a place which has had so much archaeology performed on it that they could be nothing left to find and yet this is not true. Recently a city which is over 5000 years old has been found. Archaeologists believe it was the home to more than 6000 people. When we hear this today, we think 6000 doesn’t sound like much but in those days, it was incredibly large. The city was known as En Esur. It was located near a small town called Harish. The town of Harish was doing a lot of digging to install a new highway and they were very surprised at what they found. No one expected to find an ancient city. Archaeologists are excited because there is so much more of this ancient city to be uncovered and they are anxious to see what the ruins contain. Another ancient city was found a few months before near the town of Motza, and it was even older being dated at 9000 years old. It was only half the size as it was determined to be a city of only 3000 people. Proof was found that these people knew how to domesticate animals and tools were found which were used for farming and hunting. Archaeologists claim these two towns have taught them a lot about the Bronze Age. An ancient Trojan city in Greece has been discovered. Its name is Tenea. A lot of things have been discovered in the city including lamps, baths, parts, coins and sculpture, just to mention a few of the things. The discovery was confirmed last year and the city is said to span a few thousand feet, but there are other things of value besides the city and they are tombs packed with gold and silver urns. Archaeologists suggest this proves the people who lived in the city were very well off. There is a myth about the city which claims it was built to hold Trojan prisoners but the city then flourished in ancient Roman times. According to archaeologists the city lasted until about 400 A.D. The next thing I am going to tell you I find quite amazing. Archaeologists started a project using innovative technology and discovered an incredible number of sites on the island of Arran, in Scotland. They discovered about a thousand previously unknown archaeological sites. They used an airborne laser which is really the LiDAR I talked about previously. This took 3D photos of the land. This allowed them to discover settlements, medieval farms and Neolithic monuments, among other things. Archaeologists believe they may be able to find tens of thousands of unknown sites this way. The experts claim Arran is only the first step in discovering Scotland’s heritage. One never knows what tools might lead to a discovery, a boy made a discovery of an ancient city may by looking at star maps. The boy realized that Mayan cities was somehow tied to constellations and began studying these constellations to locate more cities. He apparently found one which was an ancient Mayan city and archaeologists went out to check on it and discovered he was correct. There was a city way he said it would be. Apparently, you can overlay constellations and they match up with the largest Mayan cities. He noticed hundred and 17 Mayan cities located in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador lined up with the constellations. He then noticed there was a location where a city was yet to be found in areas how this one was discovered. There is a city called Ciudad Perdida which is more ancient than Machu Picchu. The city lies deep in the Colombian rainforest. It was discovered in 1972 and is 600 years older Machu Picchu. The city had been ransacked and archaeologists were forced to rebuild it. It is claimed that between 2000 to 8000 people lived in the city but abandon it during Spanish rule. The city has been called The Lost City. There are mountains located in Illinois’s biggest American city in the United States. The city was known as Cahokia and is still famous today for the mounds which were left behind. The area is now a Park and the city existed between 1050 A.D. the 1350 A.D. It was directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis Missouri. The ancient city covered about 6 square miles, but today there are about 120 mounds left. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest one north of Mexico. There is not much left to show the occupation. Did you ever wonder what are the oldest cities in the world? I know I have, but the problem is not everyone agrees. Recently a list was put out this year that is 2019 and I’ll share it with you:
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