Lost Ancient Cities That No One Has Ever Found

When most people hear the words “lost ancient cities,” their first thought is of Atlantis, which, as I discuss in this post I made back in 2019, is definitely fictional and never really existed. There are, however, many very real and highly significant ancient cities whose exact locations are still unknown or disputed. Perhaps the most famous example is the ancient city of Akkad; most people have heard at some point of the ancient Akkadian Empire and its founding king Sargon of Akkad (ruled c. 2334 – c. 2279 BCE), but not everyone knows that archaeologists still aren’t sure exactly where this famous ancient city was. Strong evidence suggests that it was somewhere in the area of modern Baghdad, but no one has ever conclusively identified its ruins.

Akkad is far from the only ancient city that has so far eluded modern archaeology. In this post, I will discuss other major ancient cities that are still “lost” and where archaeologists currently hypothesize they may have been.

Where is ancient Akkad?

Archaeologists have pretty good idea that Akkad was located somewhere in the general vicinity of modern Baghdad. Numerous references in ancient cuneiform texts indicate that the city was in central Mesopotamia at a crossing point on the Tigris River. For instance, an Old Babylonian manuscript, which claims to have been copied from an earlier manuscript dated to the reign of Sargon, mentions boats docked at Akkad’s wharf, which shows that it must have been on the river.

An itinerary dated to the Old Babylonian Period that begins in Mari (a site in Syria west of the Euphrates) positions Akkad between the identified cities of Sippar (located just west of Baghdad within the Baghdad Governorate) and Tutub (located eleven kilometers east of Baghdad) en route to Eshnunna, which lies east of Baghdad, across the Tigris River.

Other ancient references imply that Akkad was located relatively close to Eshnunna. In narrative texts people traveling from Eshnunna seem to reach Akkad quickly and a prisoner list from the reign of Rîm-Anum of Uruk groups prisoners from Eshnunna and Akkad together. The fact that archaeologists haven’t identified the ruins of Akkad itself after over a century of searching suggests that it may be someplace inaccessible to excavation (e.g., underneath modern Baghdad or its suburbs).

All the most commonly supported hypotheses for the location of ancient Akkad place it within a thirty-kilometer radius of modern Baghdad. Its close proximity to the modern city is the major inhibiting factor to identifying its exact location, since the area around Baghdad is highly urban and densely populated, making it impossible to excavate most parts of that area.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons showing one part of the densely urban modern-day city of Baghdad

Other lost ancient cities

Archaeologists also don’t know the exact location of the city of Thinis, which was the first capital of a united Egypt during the Early Dynastic Period. Most scholars agree that it was located somewhere in the area of Abydos, possibly at Girga or Birba, but the exact site is disputed.

We also don’t know the exact location of Itj-tawy, which was the capital of Egypt during the Twelfth Dynasty, which was the height of the Middle Kingdom. We have a pretty good idea that Itj-tawy is somewhere near the site of al-Lisht, where Amenemhat I and Senusret I (both pharaohs of the Twelfth Dynasty) built their pyramids, but, as with Akkad, no one has ever conclusively identified the city’s ruins. Today, most of the area where the city might have been is covered by agricultural fields, although a modern town also exists there.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of the pyramid of Amenemhat I at al-Lisht, one of the two royal Twelfth-Dynasty pyramids at the site. Itj-tawy was probably somewhere relatively close by, but we don’t know exactly where.

There are many other ancient cities whose locations are known, but which are not accessible for archaeologists to excavate. Notably, archaeologists know the location of the ancient city of Babylon and have excavated approximately 5% of the remains of the city from the first millennium BCE, but the remains from the time of Hammurabi lie underneath the water table and are therefore not accessible for excavation.

Many other highly important ancient cities are largely inaccessible to excavators because their ruins lie underneath modern cities, such as Athens, Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople. Having a modern city on top of it is the most common reason why a major ancient city cannot be excavated.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons showing some of the ruins of Babylon, taken between September 26 and October 12th, 1932