Last month I talked about 3 big map mistakes we made while mapping the world,
basically landmasses and seas that we thought were in one place, only to be in another
place or even completely non-existent.
While these however might have come into our collective consciousness by mistakes or bad
assumptions we made, we also have legendary tales of lost cities far away in
the mountains, or beneath the waves, or somewhere else that’s hard for us to access.
So let’s take a look at 3 of these lost ancient cities that never actually existed,
except we‘re not going to be looking at Atlantis
or El Dorado, rather we‘ll be looking at some more obscure stories.
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Vineta Perhaps the grandfather of all mythical lost
cities would be Atlantis, a city written up by Plato, said to have sunken beneath the
waves of the Atlantic as punishment from the gods.
But did you know there are also other “Atlantises” out there?
By which I mean mythical sunken cities.
Under the Baltic Sea, just off the German/Polish coast, lies the
city of Vineta.
Vineta (sometimes spelled with a W [Wineta]) is said to have been a
bustling center of commerce, open for business to all, and where different peoples from
everywhere from Scandinavia to Greece lived together in harmony.
Some accounts however described Vineta as a place of sin,
its wealthy inhabitants giving in to waste and arrogance, for which would be destroyed
by a flood in around the year 1000 AD, while others say it was besieged and destroyed
by Danish forces.
Vineta’s location isn’t exactly known, but it is said to have been located
somewhere around these areas, either off the islands of Usedom and Wolin, or near the
nearby town of Barth.
A record of the city has been recorded from numerous sources,
including Sephardi-Spanish traveler Ibrahim ibn Jaqub, and detailed accounts from
Adam of Bremen.
Adam of Bremen in particular wrote about an emporium in the Oder
River estuary home to Slavs, Barbarians and Greeks, and frequented by Saxon traders,
and which briefly held refuge for Harald Bluetooth (no that’s not a coincidence).
The existence of Vineta however remains doubtful,
and likely a form of local folktale.
Nonetheless there are numerous different landmarks around the region named after
Vineta, from German navy ships to Berlin’s Vinetaplatz and Vinetastraße U-Bahn
station-- located on the U2 between Pankow and Schönhauser Allee-- and even a
Vineta neighborhood in Swakopmund, Namibia.
Although I wouldn’t recommend naming ships and submarines after a legendary city
that... sank.
Ys
Vineta isn’t even the only mythical sunken city just off the coast of Europe either,
as there also exists an old Breton tale of the city of Ys.
Built by the semi-mythical king Gradlon at the request of his ocean-loving
daughter Dahut, Ys was built with dykes all around it to protect itself during high tide,
when all the city’s surroundings would be completely submerged underwater.
The gate however would be opened for arriving ships during low tide, with a key held by
the king himself.
His daughter Dahut however was often described, despite the king’s
piety, as frivolous or mischievous (some even saying she was a sorceress, because why not)
and would often steal the keys from her father to let her lover into the city, either
for a banquet or after being persuaded to do so
(look the story differs a lot here).
Either by mistake or under the influence of alcohol,
Dahut opened the gates of the dykes, flooding the city.
The king is saved by a Saint, who tried to save his daughter until a voice
called out, "Throw the demon thou carriest into the sea, if thou dost not desire to perish."
Dahut was thrown into the water, either by her father or just by falling off, fading
into folktale as a water spirit who continues to
haunt the waters to this day.
While there aren’t any claims that Ys was ever real, the story differs a lot
depending on who’s telling it.
In some versions the saint in question was Saint
Gwénnolé/Winwaloe, in others it was Saint Corentin.
Some versions say Dahut fell into the water while others say King Gradlon threw
her off the horse.
Some versions of the story even say it was Dahut herself who kept
the keys to the gates of the dykes.
Some versions add that one day Ys will return,
when Paris is swallowed up, as the Breton ‘Par
Is’ roughly means “like Ys”.
So yeah Paris might be destroyed, but at least we got to
learn a bit about a language by dissecting a pun!
Tartessos Finally, in ancient Greek legend, the port
city of Tartessos lie beyond the Pillars of Hercules, what we now call the Strait of Gibraltar.
(Okay so this place isn’t exactly quite as mythical as Vineta or Ys, but it’s still
interesting!)
Tartessos was recorded in ancient Greek and Roman literature throughout the
first millennium BC as being a port city at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River in Andalusia,
and home to a more widespread culture called the Tartessians.
Name-wise however, Tartessos was used in ancient accounts as the name both for the Guadalquivir
River and an older name for the city of Carpia.
"They say that Tartessus is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into
the sea by two mouths, and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same
name.
The river, which is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, those of a later day called
Baetis, and there are some who think that Tartessus was the ancient name of Carpia,
a city of the Iberians."
According to the historian Ephorus of Cyme in the 4th century BC, the
Tartessians were rich in metals including gold, copper, and importantly for the
Bronze Age, tin.
Thus Tartessos became a lucrative trading port for the region,
exporting metals from “the Celtic lands” further into Iberia to the rest of the
Mediterranean world.
Tartessos likely fell in around the 6th century BC, likely built over by the later
city of Carpia, but not without leaving behind 97 inscriptions in their language, a
language whose script has *kind of* been deciphered, but which also hasn’t been
classified to any language family.
It doesn’t resemble any Celtic language, or any
Indo-European language at all, likely being a language isolate of sorts... eh, who am
I kidding, someone’s probably trying to pair
it with Basque.
Although the city has long since faded into ancient history, a Phoenician colony
established nearby to trade with Tartessos would last into the modern day, founded in
1104 BC as Agadir, with the Romans changing its name to Gades, then the Arabs to
Qadis, and then the Spanish to its modern name, Cádiz.
While these cities might have never actually existed, that doesn’t mean there
aren’t actual sunken cities around the world, or even just abandoned ones.
We can learn a lot about our history through studying
these ancient ruins, as well as historic buildings and structures still in use.
Therefore preserving them is of utmost importance.
Today, many of these sites have been inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites,
but what actually is a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
And what does it mean to be one?
Follow me over to my channel ARTiculations to find out more.
You heard the lady, go check out her video!
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