Lost city is a term that is generally considered to refer to a well-populated area which fell into terminal decline, became extensively or completely uninhabited, and whose location has been forgotten. Some lost cities whose locations have been rediscovered have been studied extensively by scientists. Recently abandoned cities or cities whose location was never in question might be referred to as ruins or ghost towns. The search for such lost cities by European explorers and adventurers in the Americas, Africa and in Southeast Asia from the 15th century onwards eventually led to the development of archaeology.
Lost cities generally fall into two broad categories:
- no knowledge of the city existed until the time of its rediscovery
- location has been lost but knowledge of its existence has been retained in myths, legends, or historical records.
Read more about Lost City: How Cities Are Lost, Rediscovery, Legends
Famous quotes containing the words lost and/or city:
“Often on bare rocky carries the trail was so indistinct that I repeatedly lost it, but when I walked behind him I observed that he could keep it almost like a hound, and rarely hesitated, or, if he paused a moment on a bare rock, his eye immediately detected some sign which would have escaped me. Frequently we found no path at all at these places, and were to him unaccountably delayed. He would only say it was “ver strange.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The City is of Night, but not of Sleep;
There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;
The pitiless hours like years and ages creep,”
—James Thomson (1834–1882)