History of Lost Cities

In this bedtime story, I tell you about three “lost cities” and the civilizations that built them: • Machu Picchu, built as a retreat for Inca emperors 50 miles from their capital, Cusco, and largely forgotten by the outside world for more than 300 years. • Meroë, the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, along with a brief history of Nubia and its relations with Egypt in antiquity. Before Meroë became the capital, Nubian kings from Kush founded Egypt’s Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, and during the first millennium BC, they covered Nubia with pyramids. • Mohenjo-daro, a large and enigmatic city from the third millennium BC, was built by the Indus Valley Civilization and later declined along with it.