It's quite disturbing when individuals disappear..
but, what about when entire nations disappear without a trace or any explanation
Here are 10 civilizations that mysteriously disappeared
Number 10 is Catalhoyuk
First excavated in 1958 the ancient Turkish city of Catalhoyuk
Dates back to around 7500 BC
This city was home to as many as 10,000 people
But what's so mind-blowing about Catalhoyuk is how it was built
with a kind of a honeycomb structure
there were no streets or footpaths
instead the buildings were all attached to each other..
And residents would use the rooftops to meet, cook and traverse the city
In order to get inside
You'd have to go through a trapdoor in the ceiling of each home
Everyone seems to have been on equal footing with no dominant gender or class system
pretty forward-thinking for the time
however..
Around 5,000 BC the city was abandoned and to this day
No, one knows exactly what became of its people
Number 9 are The Picts
The Picts were a tribal warrior people who lived in Scotland until around the 10th century
No one knows exactly what language the Pict spoke
Or even what they technically called themselves
The name pict seems to have been with the Romans called them meaning to paint
Researchers believed that the Picts may have painted and tattooed their faces hence the name
They were ferocious that they were able to rebuff even the Roman Empire's advances into modern day Scotland
Which is why most of the highlands have no Roman ruins
unlike the rest of the United Kingdom
Recent archaeological findings suggest that they had a rich culture
Creating stunning stone carvings
While no one can be sure
There is evidence that the pics may have amalgamated with other tribes
Or were wiped out in a bloody war against invading Vikings, however, no one truly knows
Number 8 are The Ancestral Puebloan People
The ancestral Puebloans lived in modern-day New Mexico, Arizona
Colorado and Utah
between the 7th and 13th centuries
building many of their homes between huge overhanging cliffs
They constructed intricate apartment like planned communities
etched into the walls of the canyons themselves..
The Ancestral Puebloan people were able to protect themselves from attackers
With the only accessible entrance to their settlements via hazardous rock cliffs
which would make even the most enthusiastic
climber think twice
interestingly in Chaco Canyon
they drew huge paintings of
unusual figures which look like strange unearthly
Humanoid creatures
there seems to have been a mass exodus from these settlements in the end
with one theory proposing that
Severe droughts led to internal warfare and even cannibalism among them or was it an unearthly
Threat that we'll never know about
Number 7 is the Sanxingdui Culture
In China, there was once an incredible civilization called the Sanxingdui
this discovery has
Challenged the accepted story of how Chinese culture developed
carbonating suggests that the carbon dating suggests that the Sanxingdui culture
Existed around the 12th or 11th centuries BC
What set them apart from their contemporaries was their expertise with metals
Incredible examples of their work has been found
such as the earliest example of a life-sized
Freestanding human statue and the Sanxingdui tree
Which reaches three meters in height is made of bronze and is adorned with birds
flowers and other ornaments
debate continues to this day over
what exactly happened to the Sanxingdui culture
but current theories suggest that they may have been wiped out by a
cataclysmic flood or earthquake
Number 6 are the Clovis people
The Clovis people were once thought to be the first group of humans to live in the Americas
While that is hotly debated what we do know is that they lived in the Americas around
12,000 years ago
the Clovis people developed several complex hunting tools such as bows and axes
And recent genetic testing suggests that upwards of 80% of Native American populations
may be descended from the Clovis people
so you may be wondering "Where's the mystery?"
Well we do know that some survived through DNA testing
But their entire culture died out
some suggest that a comet brought about climate change
And fractured their society
while others claim that they simply changed over time
splitting off and forming the cultural basis for several subsequent native groups
all that we know is that
They existed we do not know where they went
Number 5 is the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture
[How do you know how to pronounce that?]
When food becomes scarce or war threatens to wipe out an entire people..
You would expect the largest groups to weather the storm
But that's exactly what makes it so mysterious about the Cucuteni-Trypillian people between
Between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago this culture dominated an area of over
906,000 square kilometers
in Eastern Europe
they built huge settlements housing up to 46,000 people in one city
by ancient standards that is incredible
while no one knows for certain what happened to the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture
It's likely that they were the victims of a number of factors
Such as a drought and outside attackers from other groups
Interestingly though
Archeologists have struggled to find any burial sites as if they straight-up vanished
Number 4 are the Nabateans
Around 600 BC the nomadic tribes in northern Arabia created a powerful civilization known as the Nabateans
Living in a sweltering climate across modern-day Jordan
The Nabatean kingdom were expert water engineers who developed
innovative water gathering techniques
gathering rainwater through pipelines in reservoirs and hiding it from their enemies in underground cisterns
They had no borders their empire consisting of Oasis's in the desert linked together by
popular trade routes, we know that literacy democratic principles and
anti-slavery beliefs were important to the Nabateans
But much remains a mystery it seems that the kingdom was subsumed by the Roman Empire eventually
But no one knows where all the people went all that they left behind are empty cities carved in stone
Covered by centuries of sand
Number 3 is the Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus people lived across the Indus Valley in modern-day
Pakistan and India about 5,000 years ago
They created a huge civilization encompassing more than 1,400 cities and towns many of their cities were
wonders of planning using a grid system
Which wouldn't have been seen elsewhere for thousands of years
historians are still puzzled by what happened to the Indus people?
No one has been able to translate any of their writings
Which usually would hold some clues
all that we know is that by about 1900 BC the Indus people
Abandoned their homes some burying their belongings as if to protect them from Raiders
Various explanations have been suggested including
the overcrowding of their cities, but whatever happened it was fast
And it was cataclysmic
Number 2 is Arkaim
with such a large landmass
it's no surprise that Russia holds many secrets from humanity's past
and Arkaim is one such mystery
The civilization built complex cities
Encoded with spiritual meaning
each city consisted of three concentric circular walls
spreading out from the center
Which were based on existing descriptions
of the mythical city of King Yemma
many of the buildings were built using a swastika
Like ground plan with relics adorned by the same symbol
But of course that symbol was a symbol of peace before it was used by the Nazis
the mystery of what happened to Arkaim
stretches back to at least 4000 BC
with scholars still trying to figure out what happened to their people to this day
And number 1 are the Moche
Lesser known
But equally as impressive to the Mayans, lost South American civilization, are the Moche
They lived around 1900 years ago in what is now modern-day Peru
Like other South American civilizations
they built gigantic pyramids many of which are now so eroded that they are mistaken for naturally occurring hills
The Moche were among the greatest metal workers who ever lived
Creating a vast array of intricate artifacts
For around 600 years their civilization thrived
Then around
500 to 600 AD they stopped building huge temples and began building
Fortresses instead
they survived through a terrible drought that lasted 30 years
Which makes it so much more mysterious as to what could have possibly ended them.
Many historians believe that it would have had something to do with the sudden rapid building of the fortresses
But what they were keeping out no one knows
So, that was 10
Civilizations that mysteriously disappeared
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