Google Maps user finds 4,000-year-old desert ghost town that was home to thousands

dailystar.co.uk:

Reddit user has found an abandoned city on Google Maps thousands of years after it was reduced to a desert ghost town.The poster, known as u/mystery_unrolles shared three aerial images of the historical city of Ur, that still has huge buildings peeking out of the sands that have taken back the land.The Redditor said: "City of Uru/Ur, Founded in 20th century BCE (4000 year's ago).

At that time it was the most populous city with 65,000 inhabitants."They later added in the comments that they found the site at 30°57′42″N 46°06′18″E and that the city isn't the oldest around.The posters comment said: "There are urban cities which are older than Ur, Mohenjo daro of Indus valley civilization was founded 4500 years ago (most likely)."According to Britannica, the district in southern Mesopotamia, which is now classified as southern Iraq, was once situated on the former Euphrates River and remains one of the oldest cities in the area.Settlers arrived sometime in the 4th millennium BC and was once a capital city before its decline.

It is mentioned in the Bible as Ur of the Chaldees and is believed to be the early home of Hebrew patriarch Abraham (c. 2000 BC).

Now abandoned and left to be swallowed up by the sands of the desert, it is a fascinating site for archaeologists and social media fans as Reddit users expressed their delight at the astonishing find.To stay up to date with all the latest news, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.One user said: "Would like to visit at some point to see that building and to check out why the Bible mentions Ur so much."Another wrote: "I read somewhere that Ur is a very likely candidate for the first human city.