From what happened after Alexander the Great to some of the largest ancient cities in the
world, here are 10 incredible lost civilizations.
10.
Assyrians
Situated on the outskirts of Mosul in present-day Iraq, the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh
was settled as early as 6000 B.C. during the Late Neolithic period.
By 3000 B.C., it had become a major religious center dedicated to the Mesopotamian goddess
Ishtar.
Ishtar was the goddess of war and passion, as well as the goddess of rain and thunderstorms.
Built along a fault line, Nineveh experienced numerous earthquakes, including one that destroyed
the original temple of Ishtar.
It became a great city and center of learning nonetheless, serving as the capital of the
Assyrian Empire for much of its existence.
Under King Sennacherib, Nineveh grew to include parks, aqueducts, canals, an 80-room palace,
a wall surrounding the city, and a library containing around 30,000 clay tablets.
Nineveh was continuously inhabited for thousands of years, and for roughly 50 years until 612
B.C., it was the world’s largest city.
That year, a coalition of allied forces sacked and razed Nineveh, massacring many of its
residents throughout the brutal attack and scaring others to the countryside.
The city never recovered from the destruction, but was also never fully abandoned.
In the following decades, Nineveh came under the rule of either the Medes or the Neo-Babylonian
Empire and was further conquered by numerous civilizations, including the Seleucid Empire,
the Parthian Empire, the Sassanian Empire, and finally the Arabs.
It was reduced mostly to ruins by the 13th century.
The modern-day site consists of two large mounds and the remains of the city’s massive
stone and mud brick wall that was built around 700 B.C. Sadly, what’s left of Nineveh is
losing its battle to the elements, looters, and the Islamic State, which threaten to eliminate
or destroy any remaining evidence of its long and rich history.
9.
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire conquered many famous cities during their heyday but who were they?
The Seleucids started when Alexander the Great died.
Upon his death in 323 BC, his empire was divided amongst his top generals who fought the Wars
of the Successors, known as the Wars of the Diadochi.
The winners decided to divide the empire amongst them, and Seleucus was arguably the most successful.
Seleucus claimed Babylon for himself, taking Mesopotamia and Central Asia, which also included
Nineveh.
He continued what Alexander the Great had set out to do.
He spread, creating the Seleucid Empire and merging Eastern and Western cultures.
At first the Empire was known for religious and cultural tolerance, and stretched from
the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus Valley.
The problem was that as the Empire grew it began to fracture and so Seleucus started
to give up certain regions in exchange for diplomatic relations where they would respect
his borders and accept trade agreements.
This included getting war elephants which helped him defeat several of his enemy generals.
When he died, the empire struggled to stay together but his son and grandson, Antiochus
III personally led troops throughout the land, putting down revolts and getting everyone
to fall in line.
The empire returned to its former glory but the next rulers were unable to keep everything
together.
The Romans were at the door, and the monarchy began to fight amongst each other.
Ultimately it was all over in 63 BC.
8.
GREENLAND’S VIKINGS
After being exiled from Iceland for murder in 982, a Viking named Erik the Red led a
fleet of 25 boats to Greenland, where he established two communities.
The first, known as the Eastern Settlement, was paradoxically situated near the southwestern
tip of the island, while the Western Settlement was located roughly 404 miles (650 km) to
the north along Greenland’s western coast.
Around 500 initial settlers, consisting mostly of chieftains and wealthy farmers, set up
farmsteads and built Christian churches on the newly established colony.
Residents fished, hunted wild caribou and seals, and kept livestock, including cattle,
sheep, and goats.
The Eastern Settlement grew to include around 500 farms while the Western Settlement consisted
of just 100, and the population peaked at around 5,000 people.
But when Norwegian missionary Hans Egede arrived in Greenland in 1721, he found the Norse settlements
in ruins and devoid of their Viking residents.
Researchers have long struggled to figure out what happened to these communities.
One predominant theory holds that the settlers lost their battle to survive during a mini
ice age triggered by a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia in the late 13th century.
Evidence shows that around this time, Norse Greenlanders adopted a more marine diet, suggesting
that their cattle died off and their lives became much more difficult amid the challenging
environmental conditions.
On other hand, many experts believe that climate change alone cannot explain the Vikings’
disappearance, and that a culmination of factors likely came into play, including the possible
emigration of some residents back to Europe.
But the plain and simple truth is that nobody knows for sure.
Where did the Vikings go?
7.
JIROFT CULTURE
In the third millennium B.C., during the Early Bronze Age, a civilization perhaps as great
as Sumer and Ancient Mesopotamia lived in what is now Iran.
Surrounded by tall, rugged mountains on three sides in the Halil River Valley, the mysterious
culture built a sprawling urban settlement consisting of two large burial mounds, a fortified
citadel, and numerous smaller buildings.
It is here that they lived, practiced their religion, and crafted fine artifacts like
vases and statuettes, enjoying a sophisticated lifestyle and social hierarchy for their time.
For unknown reasons, after peaking sometime between 2500 B.C. and 2200 B.C., this and
other settlements belonging to the civilization were ultimately abandoned, covered in dirt,
and forgotten.
The sites were rediscovered in the early 20th century, and were unfortunately looted along
with being formally excavated a handful of times.
With limited artifacts to learn from, experts know very little about what they call the
Jiroft people beyond having established that they were a distinct group with their own
architecture, language, beliefs, and a writing system consisting of geometric figures.
Some researchers believe that the society may very well be one of the “cradles of
civilization,”.
6.
Kerma
Starting at least 5,500 years ago, one of Africa’s earliest civilizations, the Kerma
culture, lived in their self-named capital city in what is now Sudan.
It’s one of the largest archaeological sites within ancient Nubia, a region of sub-Saharan
Africa that was known for its gold deposits, incense, ivory, and other luxury products.
Kerma emerged as a culture and an urban center around 3000 B.C., and by 1700 B.C., it was
home to at least 10,000 residents.
At its peak, the city was the most powerful in the region, as evidenced by artifacts connected
to the culture that have been found over 200 miles (322 km) away.
It housed a royal audience hall, a tall mud brick temple, a palace, funerary temples,
and chapels.
The pottery and other artifacts that the Kerma left behind differ from those of neighboring
kingdoms, like Ancient Egypt, but Kerma’s cemetery of over 30,000 graves shows that
it was not completely free of Egyptian influence.
It’s evident based on the arrangement of larger graves surrounded by smaller ones that
the Kerma practiced a social hierarchy, and some royal burials contain imagery of Horus
and other Egyptian deities, as well as Egyptian pottery, amulets, and scarab seals.
In addition to exchanging cultural ideas with ancient Egypt, Kerma clearly engaged in extensive
trade with the civilization.
But this business relationship did not remain amicable forever, and when the Egyptians sacked
the city around 1500 B.C., Kerma went on to host several New Kingdom rulers.
5.
ETRURIA
Etruria was an ancient culture that emerged as early as 900 B.C. in what are now the Tuscany
and Umbria regions of central Italy.
Its inhabitants were the Etruscans, who shared a complex culture linked by a confederation
of 12 city-states.
By 650 B.C., the civilization became a dominant culture, extending into both northern and
southern Italy.
The Etruscans also had far-reaching trade connections reaching as far as Egypt, with
whom they both traded directly and through intermediaries, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians.
Etruria had a strong military tradition that generally benefited from warfare, embarking
on raid campaigns of neighboring areas during the summer and acquiring territory and other
valuable resources, including goods and slaves.
The society valued monogamy and family life and gave women an unusual degree of freedom
for the time, which perhaps contributed to the Roman and Greek views that Etruscan women
were promiscuous.
Etruscan culture strongly influenced Roman architecture, ritual practices, and other
aspects of its culture; in fact, several Etruscan kings ruled in Rome until 509 B.C., shortly
before the Roman Republic was established.
Etruria is also credited with bringing elements of Greek culture into the early Roman Republic,
including the 12 Olympian gods, olive and grape farming, the Latin alphabet, and architectural
features including the arch and sewer and drainage systems.
Most mainstream scholars believe that when Rome absorbed Etruria’s cities during the
third century B.C., the two cultures merged.
But there are admittedly noticeable gaps in researchers’ knowledge of the Etruscans,
including their architecture, language, and literature.
4.
ASSYRIA
The northern Mesopotamian kingdom of Assyria got its start as far back as the second millennium
B.C. as a dependency of Babylonia in what is now northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.
Ruled by kings and generals, unlike the Babylonians, who were under the leadership of a priesthood,
Assyria became a burgeoning military power with a rapidly expanding population, enabling
it to establish independence in the 14th century B.C. and conquer other civilizations, including
the Hittites.
The Assyrians were technologically advanced for their time and placed a high value on
education, establishing the first known university, the School of Nisibis, which taught theology,
philosophy, and medicine.
The civilization also had impressive architecture and is credited with building huge cities
with extensive fortifications, as well as some of the first known aqueducts and arches.
Assyria was a united kingdom consisting of local governors who answered to a central
authority.
It was this unity, as well as the civilization’s military might, wealth, and advanced technology,
that enabled it to rule the majority of the Mesopotamian region for around 1,800 years.
The Assyrian state was destroyed between 612 and 609 B.C. by a Chaldean-Median coalition
following the death of its last great leader, Ashurbanipal.
Researchers’ knowledge of the Assyrian culture’s demise is limited, but it is believed that
the society entered a dark period around 1300 amid the region’s persistent warfare with
the Byzantine Republic.
As Jews and Muslims flooded into the region, many Assyrians, who were traditionally Christian,
converted to Islam to avoid high taxes imposed on their faith.
3.
VINCA CIVILIZATION
The Vinča Civilization, also called the Danube Valley Civilization, was a Neolithic culture
that lived in parts of southeastern Europe, including modern-day Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria,
Romania, and Macedonia.
Dating as far back as 7000 B.C., the Vinča are widely considered the “cradle of European
civilization.”
They built some of the largest prehistoric settlements in the region, fueled a population
boom, and further developed farming after it was introduced in the area.
In addition to raising livestock and planting crops, the Vinča developed a plow for sowing
their fields and used copper eating utensils some 1,000 years before they became common
in Europe.
They were not politically unified, but maintained cultural solidarity by trading ritual objects
over a long-distance network of settlements.
Zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures were defining features of the culture, with some
scholars alleging that the collection of around 700 symbols that the Vinča used constitute
one of the world’s oldest writing systems.
Layers of evidence found at some Vinča settlements indicate a period of occupation lasting over
1,000 years.
Nobody knows why these sites were ultimately abandoned.
2.
MISSISSIPPIANS
From around 800 to 1600 A.D., a Native American civilization called the Mississippians flourished
in the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States.
It consisted of urban settlements and satellite villages that were loosely connected by a
large trading network, with many sites containing large, earthen platform mounds.
The Mississippian culture originated in the Mississippi River Valley, and its largest
city and religious center, Cahokia, was established in what is now southern Illinois.
Its extensive trade network stretched as far west as the Rocky Mountains, east to the Atlantic
Ocean, north to the Great Lakes, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Mississippians differed from their ancestors in numerous ways, including through intensive
maize-based agriculture and the development of the complex chiefdom social hierarchy and,
with it, institutionalized social inequality.
Their belief system, known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SCC), or Southern Cult,
centered largely on ritual game-playing.
Literally playing games but with a spiritual or religious meaning.
Mississippian settlements varied by region but were tied by a common culture and belief
system.
As far as experts know, the Mississippians did not have any stone architecture or a writing
system.
The civilization peaked between 1200 and 1400, after which time it began to decline amid
increasing warfare, political turmoil, and outmigration from Cahokia.
Most factions of the culture had dispersed or were in severe social distress by 1500,
with very few persisting long enough to be around when Native Americans made the first
significant contact with Europeans, leaving modern experts with only artifacts and settlements
to learn from.
Numerous Native American groups today are thought to descend from the Mississippians,
including the Alabama, Apalachee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole -- just to name a few.
1.
MEHRGARH
Located west of the Indus River Valley in modern-day Pakistan, the Mehrgarh archaeological
site contains some of the earliest evidence of farming and herding in South Asia.
Situated at the foot of the Bolan Pass, which has long served as a connection between the
Indus basin and the Iranian highlands, the 300-acre (121.4 hectares) Neolithic settlement
was established as early as 7000 B.C. -- thousands of years before the Indus Valley civilization
emerged in the same region.
Researchers have defined eight different periods of occupation, with Mehrgarh’s first inhabitants
being semi-nomadic people who lived in mud brick homes, grew grains, and raised sheep,
goats, and cattle.
These pre-pottery people memorialized their dead with elaborate burials containing grave
goods such as baskets, pendants, tools, and other objects made from seashells, limestone,
turquoise, and sandstone.
During the second phase of occupation, the civilization began making ceramic pottery
and introduced the use of the potter’s wheel, resulting in a noticeable uptick in production.
The oldest human figurines in South Asia were discovered in large quantities at Mehrgarh,
and the advent of copper technology helped to greatly expand the site between the fourth
and seventh phases of occupation, from 5,500 to 4,500 years ago.
The Mehrgarh people abandoned the original site sometime between 2600 B.C. and 2000 B.C.,
during the seventh period of occupation, and resettled five miles (8 km) away in the larger
and more fortified town of Nausharo.
French archaeologists discovered Mehrgarh in 1974 while searching for the root of the
Indus Valley civilization.
While little is known about the ancient people who lived there, it’s clear based on the
evidence that they were advanced for their time, that they engaged in deity worship,
and that developments like agriculture and raising livestock do not have a single origin,
but developed independently in various places.
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