From Antarctic bays bound by a frozen sea to the most parched deserts on earth, from monsoon-drenched estuaries to wind-whipped Atlantic islands, there are places that humans have settled, thrived in, and then abruptly departed from. These abandoned places lie deep underground, on the highest mountain tops, in the middle of our biggest cities, in our suburbs, on our doorsteps. They are all around us, but most of the time we pass them by. Yet when we take the time to look, to explore, we find new worlds that are endlessly fascinating. What brought people to this place? How did they survive? What was life here really like? Perhaps most intriguingly of all – why did they leave?
That question is answered in myriad ways. War. Natural disaster. Economic pressure. Fashion. Political gamesmanship. Greener grass elsewhere. Human foolishness. Every derelict settlement is an empire in miniature that tells its own story of glorious rise and humble fall. Here we present sixty of those intriguing tales, illustrated with photographs that perfectly capture the haunting echoes of lives long forgotten. If there can be no true beauty without decay, then these abandoned places are, in their way, some of the most beautiful places on earth.
DATE ABANDONED: AD 663
TYPE OF PLACE: City
LOCATION: Jordan
REASON: Environmental/Economic
INHABITANTS: 20,000
CURRENT STATUS: UNESCO World Heritage Site
THREE CENTURIES BEFORE CHRIST’S BIRTH, A TRIBE OF NOMADS DECIDED TO CUT THEMSELVES A CITY FROM BARE ROCK. ABANDONED AND LOST FOR A MILLENNIUM, THEIR CAPITAL WAS REDISCOVERED IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND IS NOW RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE WORLD’S OUTSTANDING CULTURAL WONDERS.
The rose-red city half as old as time
It is called Petra in Greek and Sela in Hebrew; both mean ‘rock’ and few places have as simple and as beautifully apt a name. For this city that once housed 20,000 prosperous souls was carved out of, and into, the red sandstone cliffs of a desert gorge over 2,000 years ago.
Most abandoned places have a short life. It is the very nature of their derelict existence: they have been let go, lost, left to the entropic power of nature. Petra, however, is almost as magnificent now as it was two millennia ago.
It is mentioned twice in the Bible and Arab tradition maintains that Petra is where Moses (Musa) struck his staff on a rock and water came forth. Even then it was a wonder: one of the wealthiest cities in the ancient world flourishing in one of the harshest climates on earth. Today it is a magnificently preserved picture of an ancient civilization and a thrilling reminder that not everything we abandon need be lost.
The wanderers settle down
The Nabataeans were originally nomadic spice traders of the south Levant and north Arabia. They controlled a loosely structured trade network with oases as hubs linked by caravan routes through the surrounding desert.
Around 300 BC, they decided to develop a more state-like kingdom and swiftly constructed Petra as their capital city. The fortress-like location of towering rocks and narrow gullies certainly made for a wonderful defensive site, but there was one major problem: water.
Water management
It may be surrounded on all sides by dry, searing desert, but Petra owes its existence to water. Or rather, to the skill and ingenuity of the Nabataeans in gathering that most precious of commodities and bringing it to their city. When rain does fall here, it creates flash floods that rip through the landscape, carving its distinctive gullies and gorges. For most people that rain would be too rare and too destructive to be of any use.
The Nabataeans thought differently, and they built an ingenious system of conduits, dams, cisterns and pipes to channel and store the rain and spring water from a wide area. This vast plumbing network turned a meagre 15 cm (6 inches) of annual precipitation into a constant water supply that could deliver an estimated 12 million gallons of fresh water a day. In effect, they had created an artificial oasis. Its water supported the people of Petra – and was vital to travellers, which helped make the city rich.
The façade of Al Khazneh (‘The Treasury’) is 40 m (131 ft) high. Its position deep in a gorge has helped protect it from erosion.