Cities in Dust Trivia Quiz

Answer: Carthage

Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians in the 9th century BC on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis, in present-day Tunisia. According to the legend, its founder was Queen Elissa, also known as Dido, the tragic heroine of Virgil's "Aeneid". Due to its favourable position in the Mediterranean region, it quickly became the capital of an empire that dominated a large part of the western Mediterranean. Though destroyed at the end of the Third Punic War against Rome (146 BC), Carthage was rebuilt by Julius Caesar, and regained much of its importance in the Mediterranean as the centre of the province of Africa.

The Roman city was eventually destroyed for good in 698 AD, during the Muslim conquest of North Africa, and its population displaced to the neighbouring city of Tunis. Carthage is now a suburb of the Tunisian capital.

The archaeological site is spread over a large area, and boasts impressive ruins of Roman baths, villas and theatres, as well as remains of the original Punic city, such as the Sanctuary of Tophet (a children's cemetery often associated with human sacrifice).

Answer: Tikal

Inhabited between the 6th century BC and the 10th century AD, Tikal - located in present-day Guatemala - was a ceremonial site of the Mayan culture, and one of the largest cities in the Americas before the advent of the Europeans. The city, whose original name was probably Yax Mutal, reached its peak in the 5th century AD; however, by the 9th century it started to collapse, probably due to environmental issues, and was abandoned by its inhabitants. Though the native population was aware of the presence of the ruins, Tikal was rediscovered in the mid-19th century, and subsequently visited by archaeologists and cartographers. Tikal is now part of Guatemala's first national park (created in 1955, and inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979), and a major tourist attraction.

It hosts thousands of ancient buildings, the most prominent of which are six pyramids, imposing temples richly decorated with carvings. At the height of its power, Tikal may have had up to 90,000 inhabitants.

Answer: Mohenjo-daro

Though one of the oldest urban settlements in the world, Mohenjo-daro (a modern name, probably meaning "Mound of the Dead Men") was conceived along amazingly modern lines. Located in Pakistan's Sindh province, west of the Indus river, it was built in the 26th century BC.

At its peak, its population numbered a staggering 35,000 inhabitants, who lived in houses built of fired bricks. With its planned grid layout and stunning feats of civil engineering (which included a system of covered drains for waste water), Mohenjo-daro was way ahead of its time.

However, around 1900 BC the Indus Valley civilization went into a sudden decline, and the city was abandoned - to be rediscovered in the early 1920s, almost 4,000 years later. The archaeological site, which has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1980, is threatened by erosion (as it is built on a flood plain) and improper restoration.

Answer: Troy

For many centuries, the site of the legendary city of Troy seemed lost to human knowledge, until German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann undertook the first excavations on the mound of Hisarlik in 1870. Those excavations revealed the remains of several cities built in succession, which were subsequently identified with the site of the great city described in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Virgil's "Aeneid", and other great literary works of antiquity. Located in northwestern Turkey, in the province of Çanakkale, not far from the Aegean coast, the site has over 4,000 years of history: the first city on the site was founded in the third millennium BC. According to modern archaeologists, the Homeric city corresponds to the seventh of the cities found on Hisarlik, as it appears to have been destroyed by fire rather than earthquakes. Troy VII, as the layer is known, was a walled city with fortified towers, built around 1300 BC, and contemporary with the late stages of the Mycenaean and Hittite cultures.

The archaeological site of Troy was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986.

Answer: Machu Picchu

The Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu (Quechua for "old peak") sits on a mountain ridge 2,430 m (7,970 ft) above sea level, at the meeting point between the Andes and the Amazon basin in the Cuzco region of southern Peru. Surrounded by a tropical mountain forest, the city overlooks the Urubamba River, which surrounds it on three sides. Machu Picchu was built in the 15th century, at the height of the Inca Empire, and abandoned about one hundred years later - probably because of an epidemic of smallpox that killed most of the population.

The Spanish conquistadors, however, never reached the city, which was swallowed by the jungle. In 1911, American explorer Hiram Bingham was shown the imposing ruins of Machu Picchu by a local farmer, and the following year he returned to begin excavations on the site.

The city is divided in a terraced agricultural area and a residential one, which also included various temples dedicated to Inti, the sun god. The buildings are made of stone blocks cut to fit tightly together without mortar, stabilized to withstand the region's frequent earthquakes. How the builders of the city managed to move those large blocks of stone up the steep mountain slopes without using wheels or draft animals remains a mystery.

A World Heritage site (inscribed in 1983) like most of the cities featured in this quiz, Machu Picchu is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations, though the steady influx of people is putting a lot of strain on the structures and the environment.

Answer: Shangdu

Located in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, near the city of Dolon Nor, and about 350 km north of Beijing, Shangdu (also known as Xanadu) was the first capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty. When the emperor moved the capital to Khanbaliq (Beijing), Shangdu became his summer capital, and at its peak it had about 100,000 inhabitants. Founded in the mid-13th century, the city (originally named Kaiping) was designed by Kublai's Chinese advisor Liu Bingzhdong, combining Mongol and Chinese culture.

It had a square layout with three nested enclosures, the innermost of which was Kublai's summer palace. Though little remains but the earthen walls and a brick platform in the centre of the inner enclosure, Shangdu became a World Heritage site in 2012. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1797 poem "Kubla Khan" was inspired by Marco Polo's description of the Khan's luxurious palace, which was surrounded by extensive hunting grounds, gardens, fountains and water courses.

In 1369, Shangdu was occupied and destroyed by the Ming army; it was finally abandoned in 1430.

Answer: Persepolis

Situated in the Fars province of Iran, about 60 km northeast of Shiraz, Persepolis (Greek for "city of the Persians"), also known by the Persian name of Takht-e-Jamshid ("throne of Jamshid"), was founded by Darius I in the 6th century BC. Built on a massive half-natural, half-artificial terrace, it was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire for almost two centuries, in spite of its rather remote location in a mountainous region. Most of the city was built of grey limestone; at its heart stood the magnificent, multi-pillared palace known as Apadana, whose walls were decorated with bas-reliefs.

In 330 BC, Alexander the Great invaded Persia, and eventually took Persepolis, which was plundered and partially burned - allegedly as revenge for the Persians' burning of Athens' Acropolis 150 years before.

While the palaces were destroyed, the lower city at the foot of the terrace survived a few decades longer, but was eventually abandoned.

Answer: Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe is the largest complex of stone ruins found in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe, formerly Southern Rhodesia. Its name comes from the Shona language, and means either "great houses of stone" or "venerated houses". The city, built on a hill by indigenous people (probably of Bantu origin) between the 11th and 14th century, became the capital of the eponymous kingdom, and an important trading centre for gold, ivory, copper and other goods and artifacts; at its peak, it may have had a population of almost 20,000. Around the end of the 15th century, Great Zimbabwe fell into a decline and was abandoned, probably because of a food shortage.

The first European visitors to Great Zimbabwe, in the early years of the 16th century, were Portuguese; the site, however, began to be officially investigated in the late 19th century, when European explorers refused to believe that the city had been built by indigenous Africans.

The main structure of Great Zimbabwe is the Great Enclosure, surrounded by high granite walls built without mortar, and including the distinctive, 9-metre high Conical Tower.

Other smaller "Zimbabwes', with similar architecture, can be found all over the country, and also in Mozambique.

Answer: Knossos

First established in Neolithic times, around 8000 BC, Knossos lies on a hill on the outskirts of Heraklion, the administrative capital of Crete, the largest of the Greek islands. Knossos was the capital of the Minoan civilization, and at its peak (around 1700 BC) may have had a population of 100,000. Knossos became the setting for some well-known ancient myths, such as the one related to the architect Daedalus and the construction of the stunning palace complex (also known as the Labyrinth) believed to have been the home of the legendary king Minos, son of Zeus and Europa.

The first palace of Knossos was destroyed by an earthquake, and rebuilt on a grander scale; it was finally abandoned at the end of the Late Bronze Age, probably because of another natural disaster.

The site was discovered in 1878, and excavated in the early years of the 20th century by English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. Among many other artifacts, the excavation yielded the discovery of the Linear A and Linear B scripts, the earliest forms of the Greek language.

The palace has been partly reconstructed, emphasizing its elaborate, maze-like structure and some of its astonishingly advanced features, such as its sanitation and water management systems.

Answer: Cahokia

The site of the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia lies in the southern part of the US state of Illinois, directly across the Mississippi from the modern metropolis of St Louis, Missouri. Named after the Cahokia tribe that had settled in the area centuries after the city (whose original name is unknown) was abandoned, it was the largest Native American settlement north of Mexico.

The original city, the most important centre of the Mississippian culture of the central and southwestern US, is believed to have been much larger than the area now included in the Cahokia Mounds Historic Site.

At its peak in the 13th century, Cahokia may have had a population of about 40,000, as its thriving economy attracted many immigrants from the surrounding regions.

Unfortunately, this population explosion was accompanied by problems relating to waste disposal, as the city had no sanitation system, and the health of the population was inevitably affected. Cahokia was abandoned around 1300 AD, probably because of disease or invasion by outside peoples. Monks Mound, the largest of the 80 earthen mounds remaining on the site, is a 10-storey platform mound with four terraces, built of layers of soil and clay.

It has a height of 30 m (100 ft), and its base is the same size as the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.