Dear Reader,
I’ve always been fascinated by how much of our genuine history remains buried.
When I was a kid, I got hooked on Heinrich Schliemann’s dream of Troy — and his discovery of it and other supposedly-mythical places. Archaeologists were often my heroes.
The summer after 5th grade, we went to Mexico, and between excavations in Mexico City, Teotihuacan, and Monte Alban — among others — my eyes opened about how much had been intentionally buried from one conquering nation to the next.
It was from this that I wrote my Vampyricon trilogy — and its notions of lost cities that might still contain civilizations of people and creatures (like vampires.)
So, whenever I see these kinds of articles, I’m a bit nuts thinking about what might be found here.
Briefly, this is in the Sahara, in Libya — fortified settlements of people called the Garamantes who vanished — as such — by or before 700 A.D.
From The National Geographic:
“…Archaeologists could have easily mistaken the well-planned, straight-line construction for Roman frontier forts of similar design, Mattingly observed.
‘But, actually, this is beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire—these sites are markers of a powerful native African kingdom,’ he said…”
Do you have a favorite lost, ancient world that’s been unearthed in the past several years? Ever visited an archaeological dig site (or a recently excavated area?)
Best,
Douglas Clegg
Tags: archaeologist, archaeology, cities, Douglas Clegg, Libya, lost empires, mythology, Necropolitan Life, Sahara, vampires, vampyricon
Schliemann – now THAT’s a blast from the past. Right up there with Stephens and Catherwood, Carter and Carnarvon. There was a wonderful book in my library titled “Lost Worlds: Adventures in Archaeology” that I read more times than I could count when I was a child. They were all my favorites, all of those romantic, mysterious other places, and I dreamed of becoming one of the people who would find them.
I would say that the Moche and the Anasazi both fascinate me because we simultaneously know so much and so little. Both cultures left ample evidence of themselves behind, but so much of it remains mysterious, refusing to fit itself into a contextual whole.
I’ve often wondered how often we get that context wrong, though. I hike regularly in an area that is a closed state park campground converted to hiking trails. The comfort stations, picnic tables, signs marking the various camp sites, paved road in – all of it was left intact. Sometimes when I’m there I imagine that I’m an archaeologist from the future, uncovering all of this and trying to figure out what it all meant. I come up with some entertaining interpretations.