To say 'this is not a civilisation that's doing well on its own. "It allows you to justify all kinds of colonial incursions. "Lost city stories became so popular in the modern era – starting in the 19th Century or the 18th Century – because they were really good ways of disguising colonialism," Newitz said. In France, Newitz explains, his visit was hailed as a "discovery". He speculated that Angkor was built by ancient Greeks or Egyptians. "At first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilised, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?" Mouhot wrote of the sprawling jungle site. Newitz explains that the city was actually inhabited when French explorer Henri Mouhot arrived there in 1860 – indeed, had never been fully abandoned – but the visitor couldn't imagine Cambodian forbears were capable of such grandeur. That happened at Angkor, where I'd spent sunny afternoons amid the ruins. While yarns about lost cities make compelling travel tales, Newitz argues that those narratives too often obscure the real stories behind humanity's most magnificent places. Their book hops continents and millennia, offering four ancient sites as object lessons in urban life: Cambodia's Angkor the Native American cosmopolis of Cahokia Roman Pompeii and Neolithic Çatalhöyük in modern-day Turkey. "For probably thousands of years, people have been telling adventure stories about dramatic lands beyond our borders – stories about ancient civilisations," said Annalee Newitz, author of Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age. And if a pall of disaster hangs over many lost cities, even that is softened by passing time. We see our lives reflected in the stones, imagine our intimate dramas against their romantic, crumbling backdrops. They're catnip for avid travellers, inspiring a sense of adventure that's fuelled grand expeditions and tall tales. Indeed, lost and abandoned places have a powerful pull on the imagination. "The lost city is thus poetry, dream world and a setting for our passions and meanderings." "For the very reason that somewhere no longer exists, it can be transformed into the ideal city, the city of one's dreams," wrote Aude de Tocqueville in her 2014 book Atlas of Lost Cities: A Travel Guide to Abandoned and Forsaken Destinations. Chisels rang out as artisans created the exquisite masterpieces around me, while grandiose kings paraded through wide avenues lined with statuary. In my mind's eye, throngs of worshippers carried bright offerings. But wandering through temple after temple, I slipped easily into imaginative reverie. It was my first day at Angkor, and I knew little of the city's history then. The trippy portraits swelled from towers and walls, each one with plump lips curved into an unnerving smile. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across hundreds of stone faces carved into Bayon Temple as I scrambled deeper into the 12th Century shrine at the heart of Cambodia's sprawling Angkor site.
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