Ancient cities, a travel to the past

Going back to the past, it is not an easy task actually because for the moment, no one has invented a machine which allows traveling through the time but by taking a simple flight, we can go to some cities, older than you can imagine, and feel how it was the life before.

Following some old cities that may be lost forever because if the government of the country wants to preserve it, they have to put a lot of money and majority of them don’t so with the time, they can be destroyed by the mother nature.

Angkor, declared as UNESCO world heritage site, is located in Cambodia. Although the angkorian period

started after 800 AD, the city was built around 900 with an area of about 3000 square kilometers and actually, most of the buildings, that survived, are temples. To visit it, there are a lot of ways like by helicopter or mounting an elephant.

Herculaneum was located in the south, exactly in Italy, and it was founded around 740 BC. Due to the eruption of the mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the city was completely buried under volcanic material and it was not before 1709 that remains have been discovered. Actually, the city is named Ercolano and declared as UNESCO world heritage site.

Carthage is located in Tunisia and according to historians, it was founded during the 1st century BC. Declared as UNESCO world heritage site, the city was destroyed 2 times so before to be destroyed definitively by the time, visit its remains like the old roman baths and the temples.

Taxila is one of the 7 sub districts of Punjab in Pakistan but before, it was a big city founded during the 7th century BC by the union of 3 major cities. The interesting thing is that each city was founded in different time period. Except the ruins of the city that everyone can discover, there are also a number of buddhist monasteries and stupas to see in this UNESCO world heritage site.

In Mexico, don’t miss Palenque, an old maya city dating from 100 BC and declared as UNESCO world heritage site. Actually, the discovered area covered up to 2,5 square kilometers but archaeologists estimates that less than 10% of the total area of the city is explored, leaving more than a thousand structures still covered by jungle.

The most impressive inca city, Machu Picchu, located on a mountain in Peru, is founded around the 15th century. Declared as UNESCO world heritage site, it is in danger of subsidence because of the flood of tourists. Actually there are around 3000 people visiting its buildings dedicated to ceremonies and astronomy. According to UNESCO, the government has to limit to 1000 per day to avoid its disappearing.

In England, we can find Dunwich dating from the 7th century. It was a big town before that a storm destroyed a great part of it, reducing it at the size of a village during the 13th century (it was said that the main material, used to construct buildings, was sand). Actually, there is a project underway to reveal the lost city with high-tech underwater cameras.

Near to it, there is Skara Brae In Scotland, a neolithic ruin dating between 3180 and 2500 BC and declared as UNESCO world heritage site. The curious thing is that it was a storm which allowed its discovery in 1850 and actually it is considered as the one of the four sites making up “the heart of neolithic orkney”. Due to erosion, most of the monuments have disappeared but you can still discover some remains older than stonehenge and the great pyramids.

Before to be a big city and to be very famous, Babylon was a small town founded around the 3rd millennium BC. Many legends and movies talk about it, particularly the tower of Babel, based on real and false facts. Actually, its remains are located in Iraq, just about 85 kilometers from Baghdad.