Ancient data, modern math and the hunt for 11 lost cities of the Bronze Age

Ancient data, modern math and the hunt for 11 lost cities of the Bronze Age

This is a interesting bit of research, using a large set of ancient records of trade between various bronze age cities a team used the data and mathematics to predict distances between trade cities to indicate where lost cities might lie. Part of their reasoning is that cities closer to one another will trade more frequently, and cities farther away less. By plotting trading distances of known cities on a map, they could see where these distances would overlap to indicate possible locations of lost cities - sort of triangulating their position.



Article is short and sweet, worth checking out.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

A interesting piece and another layer to hint at where these places might or might not be found . Now for the leg work .

very interesting, thanks for sharing

That was a great read OP. Thanks.

I just hope someone gets out there with a shovel Be great to see a bit of ancient history uncovered.

Very good article and a great idea for locating "lost" cities. I'd think that you could do the same thing with a map and a compass manually if you had all the data.

Good thing it was on clay, our modern paper trail is now electronic so we aren't going to leave much information behind to sort through.

I hate to be a negative nancy, but I'm not sure their theory holds up. Even in ancient times, distance between cities isn't the only thing that would affect the amount of trade. If that's the only thing they're using to analyze the data, the results are gonna be off. They're failing to take into account supply and demand.

I think that it is amazing that we keep finding things like this , some people think we know everything about our planet , but yet we keep finding things that should not be there .