Other lost cities

Cities are usually called 'lost' for one of two reasons:

• They were once great but went into decline after a natural catastrophe, such as a volcanic explosion or drought, and were abandoned by their population, only to be rediscovered by modern archaeologists.
  
  
• They are imaginary cities, which only ever existed in the minds of poets and story-tellers as powerful symbols of the human desire for a perfect civilisation, a heaven on earth, or as places of great wealth, ripe for the picking. Often, intrepid explorers have refused to believe that these are just fantasies and have sought them in obscure and inaccessible parts of the globe.

Lost and found

Babylon The biblical story of the Tower of Babel, which gives a mythical explanation of why so many different languages exist, is one of the clues that remained after the city of Babylon disappeared from history when famine, disease and other calamities struck it during the first millennium. Thanks to the Bible and ancient Greek writers such as Herodotus, Babylon continued to be remembered as a symbol of the oppression of the Jews. However, it was not until modern archaeologists excavated its buried sites, on the Euphrates River south-west of Baghdad in Iraq, that this ancient Mesopotamian and Assyrian city was brought to life again. The supposed discovery of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – one of the Seven Wonders of the World – remains controversial, but archaeologists have found the remains of a ziggurat – a stepped tower – that probably inspired the mythical Tower of Babel.

Troy The legendary city of Troy fascinated generations of Europeans because it was here that the events of Homer's epic poem, the Iliad, with its stories of ancient Greek heroes and gods fighting the Trojan wars, took place. In 1870, the German scholar Heinrich Schliemann began excavating the mound of Hissarlik overlooking the Dardanelles in Turkey, which had traditionally been seen as the site of Troy. Schliemann eventually dug down through nine cities, one on top of the other, and in the second oldest (that is, the one that was second from the bottom), he found a hoard of treasures – nearly 9,000 objects including some of gold and silver. This, he claimed, was the Troy of the Iliad. However, since then, this level has been identified as too early for Homer's Troy (it actually dates from about 2500 BC). The seventh city, which was destroyed by fire in about 1250 BC, now seems to be the best candidate, although it still hasn't been absolutely proved that this is where Helen was held captive and Achilles and Hector fought.

Pompeii The ancient Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum – just south of Naples in Italy – were buried under lava and ash when the nearby volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted on 24 August AD 79. Survivors abandoned the site, which was rediscovered by chance during the 18th century. Since then, excavations have yielded unique evidence of life during Roman times. Because of the suddenness of the eruption, many of the inhabitants were trapped and all the objects they had been using when the catastrophe happened remained where they were. These have been preserved in the volcanic ash and provide a fabulous record of daily life almost 2,000 years ago.

Paradise on earth

Atlantis First mentioned by the Greek philosopher Plato, the city of Atlantis was, legend says, the source of fabulous wealth until it was covered by a flood of biblical proportions. Some dreamers locate Atlantis in the middle of the Atlantic, where the depth of the water makes any exploration impossible, while others believe that it was a real Mediterranean city that was destroyed by an earthquake or other natural disaster. Whether it actually existed or not, the legend continues to inspire believers.

Shangri-La First made famous by James Hilton's 1933 novel Lost Horizons (and the 1937 film of the same title), this hidden valley in the Himalayas, where beautiful people are so healthy that death is endlessly postponed, seems like an alluring detour for any trekker. In most versions of the legend, the paradise is found by a stray plane crash-landing in the mountains, which are also home to such fascinating creatures as the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman. Sadly, modern satellite mapping techniques mean that such obscure valleys and hidden cities are unlikely to exist.

Utopia 'Utopia' – from the Greek for 'no place' – was invented by the statesman and scholar Sir Thomas More in his book of the same name, published in 1516. Like all such visionary conjectures, Utopia was an imaginative fantasy created by More in order to criticise what he saw as the wickedness and corruption of his own times. Although nowadays 'utopian' generally means 'optimistic', the details of More's own version of paradise on earth may strike modern readers as unappealing: celibacy, hard work and moral rectitude are the order of the day – and men rule women with a firm hand.

El Dorado The name – which means, in Spanish, the 'gilded one' – was originally given to the king of the fabulous city of Manoa, supposedly located on the Amazon in the South American interior. The king was said to be periodically covered with oil and then powdered with gold dust – literally 'gilded'. The name El Dorado eventually became interchangeable with that of Manoa (where, it was rumoured, all the houses had gold roofs). It was the focus of a number of expeditions by English adventurers, including Sir Walter Raleigh, and became almost an obsession with the Spanish. One such was Gonzalez Pizarro, brother of the conqueror of Peru, who in 1560 led an unsuccessful search for the city of gold in the dense rainforest. This foray inspired the 1972 film Aguirre, The Wrath of God, directed by Werner Herzog.

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