A sensational discovery was made by a group of archaeologists in Cambodia - in impenetrable jungle discovered lost city with a thousand-year history, the search for which has been going on for more than a dozen years. Modern technology came to the aid of scientists: the area was scanned from the air with a special device.

Archaeologists can't find the words! About disappeared in the wilds of the rainforest ancient city previously it was known only from legends. Mahendraparvata, or "Mountain of the great god Indra" - this name has been carried to our days by an inscription on one of places of worship 40 kilometers from this place.

"These are definitely the ruins of a temple. Only sacred buildings were made of stone. This is the pedestal on which the statue of the temple stood. It was all in the center of the city," says expedition leader Damian Evans.

After the first stone foundation, find follows find. Mysterious sanctuaries that have stood for centuries, skillful stone carving, a developed network of roads, many canals, dams and ponds to supply water to residents and their crops.

"If you look at the vegetation around me, it will resemble a paddy field. But if you look at it in perspective, it is nothing more than the territory of the temple. Nobody knew about its existence for hundreds of years. Everything inside was there for a thousand years ago, "says Damian Evans.

Scientists call the date of the foundation of Mahendraparvata the 802th year of our era. The year the Khmer Empire was founded. It was in these places, as the legend says, that its first ruler received a kingdom blessing. For a long time, the city of Angkorvat was considered the capital of his state; during its heyday, about a million people lived in it. Scientists are sure that now he will definitely share his glory with Mahendraparvata.

“Interestingly, the found city is absolutely the same as Angkor. But we managed to establish that it was built much earlier than it, about 350 years. And, apparently, we approached its outskirts. 30 square kilometers, and that's not all, "says archaeologist Jean-Baptiste Shevans.

The find of the international expedition of Damian Evans and Jean-Baptiste Shevans can be compared to the discovery of the legendary Troy. True, in this case it was not without the help of modern technology. The search area was explored from the air for a whole week. 3D plan sacred mountain archaeologists have compiled a laser scanner - lidar. He also discovered the ruins of 30 temples.

"Previously, we would have needed more than one year to map all this. Now we need to describe everything we saw and continue working, since the city turned out to be much larger than we expected," says Demina Evans.

Scientists walked to Mahendraparvata for 13 long years, overcoming kilometers of tropical jungle, swamps and the legacy of a bygone era - minefields left over from a long civil war. The reasons for the decline and desolation of the city are presumably called uncontrolled deforestation, due to which the canals began to dry up and the yield of fields fell.

The Lost City You Must See.

Humpy is one of oldest cities on the ground. It was one of the centers of Hindu civilization 4 thousand years ago. But Hampi reached its greatest heyday around the end of the 15th century - not long before India was occupied by Muslims from the north.

This place is often mentioned in the Ramayana. It was here that events unfolded, as the legend says, between the gods Lakshman, Hanuman, Sita, Rama, Sugriva and Bali. Where the citadel of Anegodi was, now the monkey kingdom is spread.

Hemakunta Hill, located south of the Virupaksha temple and clearly visible from the Hampi bazaar, has preserved the remains of early Jain temples and the largest monolithic sculpture in Hampi, Narasimha, one of the forms of God Vishnu, now it stands alone.

Also in the Bazaar area, among the boulders, there is a monolithic statue of God Ganesha, and several more temples inside a small mandapa.

2 km. northeast of Hampi Bazaar is the 16th century Vittal or Vitthala Temple, one of the finest examples of the Vijayanagara Empire's architectural art. The outer columns of this temple are said to have produced music when they were carved, which is why they are also known as musical columns. In fact, the thin stone columns do make a sound when you pat them with the palm of your hand.

On the way here and in front of the entrance to the temple complex on the right, you can see medieval shopping arcades, which are stone columns and once stone slabs lying on them, which allowed merchants and buyers to be here during the bright and hot time of the day.
Inner part temple complex- both the temple and the dance hall are perfectly preserved, here you can see friezes and columns, with figures of animals and warriors, and in between sculptural images ten avatars of Vishnu.
The stone chariot, which has become the symbol of Hampi, dates back to the 15th century. Stone wheels made in the shape of a lotus can rotate around stone axes.

The royal center of Hampi is so named because it was here that the elite lived, in some places it is surrounded stone walls, with lookout towers that you can climb into, and contains several attractions, mainly of the Indo-Saracenic type.

On the left are elephant stalls, connected by small windows through which elephants could communicate with their trunks.

The Lotus Palace, which is a mixture of Indian and Islamic architecture, is a complex pavilion, it has never been inhabited and was used as a resting place during hot times of the day. Stone palace has a complex architectural plan, thanks to which the breath of the breeze is always felt in it, the building gets its name from the blossoming lotus flower, which is similar to carved domes and vaulted ceilings.

Hampi has only been open to tourists for the last 20 years, until then it remained an abandoned city in the jungle.

At one time it was visited by the English writer Joseph Kipling, who wrote The Jungle Book, for which in 1907 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Fresh review

I will continue to publish photos taken German tourist in Almaty in December 2013. Everything about the upper districts of the city will be here (well, or almost everything - something will be included in the next review). And without any special details: all the beautiful multi-storey buildings, everything is clean and beautiful. In general, what our authorities want to show tourists. And of course the Independence Monument will be detailed.

The first photo is the TV Center on Mira-Timiryazeva. The building is really very nice.

Random entries

Of course, if you look at the map, then in the center of Sharjah there is not a lake, but a bay connected to the sea by a long and not very wide sleeve. But local guides for some reason call it the "lake". There is not much to write about, a lot of photographs and panoramas. I went out to him by accident. The heat was 45 degrees, so it was deserted - normal people do not walk in such weather.

Surprisingly, with such heat, which lasts not one or two days, but almost all year round, everything around is pretty green. Here is the first photo on this topic.

According to excursion program, which we were provided with in Alma-Ata, on the second day there should be an acquaintance with Tbilisi. But it didn’t work out that way. The host side had their own ideas for organizing excursions. And on this day we went to the Borjomi gorge. In principle, we didn't care where to go first, so we weren't upset. Moreover, we were not one of our hotel in the excursion minibus. The guide warned that the tour will be long and you need to have money in local currency with you, because lunch is not included in the price of this trip, and there may not be ATMs or exchange offices on site. And our transport went through the streets of Tbilisi, collecting tourists from other hotels. So our acquaintance with the city continued at least from the bus window.

I've always wanted to see Switzerland. But after listening to friends who have already been there or even live there, as well as having read all the ratings of the most expensive cities of the world (for example, according to the rating of the Swiss bank UBS in 2018, Zurich is in first place), Switzerland somehow frightened me off Well, the mountains, well, the architecture ... - In Almaty, there are also mountains, and in Germany, in any city, there is architecture. Suddenly in Switzerland a mixture of Germany and Almaty, but at the price of an airplane? It is not interesting

But the company I work for has a contract with the University of Zurich - UZH, and since the beginning of 2018 I was lucky enough to visit this city several times - mostly business trips, but once I even went there as a tourist When I started writing an article There were not very many photographs, because during business trips around the city you can't take a walk - from work to the hotel, in the morning back. But over these several times, they have accumulated enough for a couple of articles. So, the article is numbered.

One more remarkable place nearby is called Carbon Canyon Regional Park. And it is remarkable for its grove, it even leads to it hiking trail, along which we, in fact, walked. This park belongs to the neighboring town of Breya (as it is called in Russian on the Google map, and in their language Brea). But I'll start over, we were brought up to this beginning of the trail by car, and then we set off on foot, although not everywhere it looked like a terrenkur.

I heard about whether national park, or about the geological reserve, which is located near the town of Obzor, in the neighboring village of Byala, and which is called "White Rocks". I rented a car and went to see what it was. Firstly, Byala turned out to be not a village, as everyone calls it in Obzor, but a normal one. tourist town, the size of the same Obzor, which became a city in 1984. Secondly, the name Byala is translated as "White" and this name just comes from this natural monument - "White Rocks".

In this review I will tell you how to get there and what is there, beautiful or interesting. And in the next - about the museum and about the rocks from a more scientific point of view.

In general, it is believed that Sharjah is such a not very cool emirate. Well compared to Dubai. But apparently recently Sharjah has pulled up a lot in terms of building new beautiful skyscrapers.

Well, again, by the time we rode in Sharjah, we had not yet been to Dubai, and therefore Sharjah seemed to us quite cool in terms of development. I've seen enough multi-storey cities - this is both, and, and even a new one, but Sharjah wins in terms of the density of skyscrapers. Maybe in this parameter it can be compared with it, but in Urumqi the skyscrapers are quite unpretentious - in architecture they are similar to monochrome boxes, not all, but many. And here everything is different, modern, unique.

Not much to write about. Therefore, basically, just photographs, the bulk of which are made from a moving car, therefore with glare.

Giebichenstein Castle was built during the early Middle Ages, between 900 and 1000 years. At that time, he was of very important strategic importance not only for the Magdeburg bishops, whose residence was until the castle was built, but also played an important role in all imperial politics. The first written mention dates back to 961. Built on a high cliff above the Saale River, about 90 meters above sea level, on the site where the main Roman road once passed. In the period from 1445 to 1464, at the foot of the castle rock, the Lower Castle was also built, which was intended to serve as a fortified courtyard. Since the transfer of the episcopal residence to Moritzburg, the so-called Upper Castle began to decline. And after the Thirty Years War, when it was captured by the Swedes and burned down, in which almost all buildings were destroyed, it was abandoned altogether and was never restored. In 1921, the castle was transferred to the city property. But even in such a ruined form, it is very picturesque.

This review about the Review will be great, and perhaps not the most interesting, but it seems quite beautiful. And it will be about greenery and flowers.

The Balkans in general and Bulgaria in particular are generally quite green areas. And the pastoral views are gorgeous. But in the city of Obzor, greenery is mainly in parks, although there are also vegetable gardens, as you can see in the middle of this report. And at the end, a little about wildlife in and around the city.

At the entrance to the city from the side of Varna, a gorgeous flower bed is laid out, which is very difficult to see on the go. But on foot it turns out that there is written "Obzor" in flowers, and in some stylized Slavic font.

Tri-City Park is located in Placencia, bordered by Fullerton and Brea. All these settlements are part of Orange County, southern California. For all the time that we have been here, we have not figured out where one city ends and another begins. And, probably, it is not so important. They are not very different in architecture and their history is about the same, and parks are in close proximity. We also went to this one on foot.

18.04.2013

Oddly enough, but often residents leave entire cities, they are overgrown with grass and rot. Often this withdrawal is caused by war or natural disaster. The city becomes a kind of time capsule, because it remains in the state in which its owners left it. Many of lost cities were found, others have remained a legend. This top 10 can be called in different ways and abandoned cities, abandoned cities, lost cities, disappeared cities, city of legend, etc. but whatever you call it the greatest cities that have left their mark on history forever.

10. City of Caesars

Also known as The eternal City and the City of Patagonia. He was never found, but presumably in the south. South America, in the region of Patagonia. It was founded by Spanish travelers who were shipwrecked off the coast of South America. A bunch of of legends surrounds the city: someone talks about mountains of gold, someone says that the city was inhabited by 10-foot giants, someone claims that this is a city of ghosts that appear and disappear.

9. Troy

Sung in the poems of Homer, Troy was previously somewhere on the territory modern Turkey... It was a developed and well-armed city with a reliable security system. Its coastal location has allowed it to become major port, and the nearby plains allowed the development Agriculture... The remains of Troy were first discovered in 1870 by Heinrich Schliemann. Despite the fact that the excavations of Troy have since been often suspended and plundered, the scale is impressive today.

8. Lost City of Z

Supposedly located in the jungle of Brazil, the city of Z was the basis of a famous advanced civilization. The intricate network of bridges, roads and temples excites the imagination. Rumors of its existence have been going on since 1753, when portuguese sailor wrote a letter claiming that he had visited the city. In 1925, explorer Percy Fawcett and several groups that went in search of him disappeared.

7. Petra

Perhaps the most beautiful of all the cities on this list. Petra is located in Jordan near Dead sea and was previously the center of the Nabataean Trade Caravan. Its architecture is most striking - the temples are carved right into the rocks and the surrounding mountains. The city was built in 100 BC. and as studies show, he achieved many technological advances: dams, cisterns and much more helped him to survive during floods and droughts. After the conquest by the Romans and the earthquake in 363 AD. the city fell into decay, and soon became abandoned city... Petra stood in the desert until 1812.

6. Eldorado

Ostensibly located in the jungles of South America, a golden city ruled by a powerful king, and locals rich in gold and precious stones... Many expeditions obsessed with this idea lost and died in the jungle... The most famous of these was organized in 1541 by Gonzalo Pizarro, who led a group of 300 soldiers and several thousand Indians. They did not find any evidence of the existence of the city, many died from the epidemic, hunger and attack by the natives.

5. Memphis

Founded in 3100 BC, Memphis was the capital ancient egypt, and served as the administrative center of civilization for hundreds of years before losing influence with the rise of Thebes and Alexandria. At its peak, the population of Memphis exceeded 30,000 - the most Big city antiquity. The location of the city was lost until Napoleon's expedition discovered it in the 1700s. due to the subsequent growth modern cities, many parts of Memphis are lost.

4. Angkor

Angkor in Cambodia was the center of the Khmer empire from 800 to 1400 AD. AD The region was abandoned after gradual decline, which ended with the invasion of the Thai army in 1431, leaving massive cities and thousands Buddhist temples without a single inhabitant in the jungle. The city remained relatively intact until the 1800s, when it was discovered by a group of French archaeologists. Angkor and its surroundings are recognized as the largest pre-industrial city in the world, and its famous Angkor Wat temple is considered the largest religious monument in existence.

3. Pompeii

The Roman city of Pompeii was destroyed in 79 by the eruption of Vesuvius, who buried him under 60 feet of ash and stone. The city was estimated to have a population of about 20,000 and was considered one of the best luxury resorts for the Romans. The ruins of the city remained intact until the 1700s, when it was reopened in 1748 by workers building a palace for the King of Naples. Since then, excavations have not stopped there.

2. Atlantis

Today it is already argued that Atlantis is nothing more than a myth, but at one time it was the main and at the same time the attraction of gold miners from all over the world. The city was first mentioned in 360 BC. in the writings of Plato as a developed civilization, a powerful naval city. According to some scientists, Atlantis conquered almost all of Europe before it sank under water as a result of an ecological catastrophe. This legend of a technologically advanced city full of treasures has captured the imaginations of many writers and would-be adventurers. But none of the expeditions aimed at finding him was found.

1. Machu Picchu

Of all lost cities that have been found and studied, perhaps there is nothing more mysterious than Machu Picchu. Isolated near the Urubamba Valley in Peru, the city remained hidden from human eyes until 1911. The city is divided into districts and includes over 140 different structures. It is said to have been built in 1400 by the Incas and abandoned by them less than 100 years later, most likely after its population was destroyed by smallpox brought from Europe. There are many legends around the city. Someone claims that the whole city is a holy temple, others claim that it was used as a prison, but recent studies show that, most likely, the city was the property of the Inca emperor Pachacuti. And the place was chosen based on the astrological mythology of the Incas.

There is a document in the National Library in Rio de Janeiro called Manuscript 512, which tells the story of a group of treasure hunters who discovered a lost city in the jungle of Brazil in 1753.

The text is something like a diary in Portuguese and is in rather poor condition. Nevertheless, its content has inspired more than a generation of explorers and amateurs - treasure hunters - to search.

Manuscript 512 - perhaps the most famous document National Library Rio de Janeiro and from the point of view of modern Brazilian historiography is "the basis of the greatest myth of national archeology." In the XIX-XX centuries. the lost city described in Manuscript 512 has been the subject of heated debate, as well as a relentless quest by adventurers, scientists, and explorers.

The document is written in Portuguese and is entitled "Historical Relation of an Unknown and Large Settlement, Ancient, Without Residents, Which Was Discovered in the Year 1753" ("Relação histórica de uma occulta e grande povoação antiguissima sem moradores, que se descopiu no anno de 1753" ). The document has 10 pages and is written in the form of a forwarding report; at the same time, taking into account the nature of the relationship between the author and the addressee, it can also be characterized as a personal letter.

Percival Harrison Fawcett was one of the most heroic personalities of the 20th century. The eminent British archaeologist became famous for his expeditions to Latin America... Perhaps not everyone is able to spend almost sixty years of their life most in wanderings and in military service.

Fawcett went on an expedition in 1925 in search of this city (he called it the lost city "Z"), which he believed was the capital ancient civilization created by immigrants from Atlantis.

Others, such as Barry Fell, believed that the strange symbols seen in the city were the work of the Egyptians from the time of Ptolemy. In addition, the city has a lot of evidence from the times of the Roman Empire: the Arch of Constantine, the statue of Augustine. The following are excerpts from this document.

The entire Fawcett expedition did not return, and her fate remained a mystery forever, which soon overshadowed the very secret of the lost city.

The subtitle of the document says that a group of Bandeirants ("Indian hunters") spent 10 years wandering through the interior unexplored regions of Brazil (sertans) in order to find the legendary "lost mines of Moribeki".

The document tells how the detachment saw mountains sparkling with numerous crystals, which caused the amazement and admiration of the people. However, at first they failed to find a mountain pass, and they camped at the foot of mountain range... Then one negro, a member of the detachment, chasing a white deer, accidentally discovered a paved road passing through the mountains.

Ascending to the top, the Bandeyrants saw from above a large settlement, which at first glance was mistaken for one of the cities on the coast of Brazil. Descending into the valley, they sent scouts to learn more about the settlement and its inhabitants, and waited for them for two days; an interesting detail is that at this time they heard the crowing of roosters, and this made them think that the city was inhabited.

Meanwhile, the scouts returned with the news that there were no people in the city. Since the others were still not sure of this, one Indian volunteered to go on reconnaissance alone and returned with the same message, which, after the third reconnaissance, was already confirmed by the entire reconnaissance detachment.

At dusk, they marched into the city, weapons at the ready. Nobody got caught by them or tried to block the way. It turned out that the road was the only way to get to the city. The entrance to the city was a huge arch, on the sides of which there were smaller arches. On the top of the main arch was an inscription that was impossible to read due to the height of the arch.

Behind the arch was a street with large houses, the entrances of which were made of stone, on which there were many different images that had darkened with time. With caution, they entered some houses, which did not have traces of furniture or other traces of a person.

In the center of the city there was a huge square in the middle of which stood a tall column of black granite, on top of which stood a statue of a man pointing with his hand to the North.

In the corners of the square there were obelisks, similar to Roman ones, which had significant damage. On the right side of the square stood a majestic building, apparently the palace of the sovereign. On the left side were the ruins of a temple. The surviving walls were painted with frescoes decorated with gilding, reflecting the life of the gods. Behind the temple, most of the houses were destroyed.

In front of the ruins of the palace flowed a wide and deep river with beautiful waterfront, which in many places was littered with logs and trees brought by the flood. From the river, there were canals and fields overgrown with beautiful flowers and plants, including rice paddies, on which large flocks of geese were found.

After leaving the city, they three days downstream, until they came to a huge waterfall, the sound of the water of which could be heard for many kilometers. Here they found a lot of ore containing silver and apparently brought from a mine.

To the east of the waterfall there were many large and small caves and pits, from which, apparently, ore was mined. In other places, there were quarries with large cut stones, on some of them inscriptions were engraved, similar to the inscriptions on the ruins of a palace and a temple.

A cannon shot in the middle of the field was a country house about 60 meters long with a large porch and a staircase made of beautiful colored stones leading to Big hall and 15 smaller rooms decorated with beautiful frescoes and an indoor pool.

After several days of travel, the expedition split into two groups. One of them downstream met two white men in a canoe. They had long hair and were dressed in European style. One of them, named Joao Antonio, showed them a gold coin found in the ruins of a farmhouse.

The coin was quite large and showed a figure of a man kneeling, and on the other side a bow and arrow and a crown. According to Antonio, he found the coin in the ruins of a house, which was apparently destroyed by an earthquake, which forced the residents to leave the city and the surrounding area.

Some of the pages of the manuscript are generally impossible to read, including a description of how to get to this city due to the poor condition of the sheets of Manuscript 512. The author of this diary swears that he will keep it secret, and especially information about the location of abandoned silver and gold mines and gold-bearing veins on the river.

The text contains four inscriptions copied by the bandeyrants, executed in unknown letters or hieroglyphs: 1) from the portico of the main street; 2) from the portico of the temple; 3) from a stone slab that covered the entrance to the cave at the waterfall; 4) from the colonnade in a country house.

At the very end of the document, there is also an image of nine signs on stone slabs (as you might guess, at the entrance to the caves; this part of the manuscript was also damaged). As noted by the researchers, the given signs most of all resemble the letters of the Greek or Phoenician alphabet (in some places also Arabic numerals) in shape.