why do so many ancient ruins end up underground?

Question

With the passage of time, do they get covered with dust until they end up buried in a pile of dust or what?

Answer 1

ancient ruins left uncovered become so severely weathebeaten that they do not last so long.... the ruins we are most likely to find are those which have been preserved by being covered with either, volcanic matter, sand, dust and dirt, mud, by natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, landslides, typhoons, cyclones, earth quakes, and other such natural phenomena.

Answer 2

There are numerous reasons why some ancient ruins are found underground while others are out in the open hidden behind vegetation.

As mentioned above volcanic eruptions have buried cities throughout history and still do till this very day, however a preseved city in this manner is dependent on a nearby volcano.

When the site is in the desert it gets a double threat, erosion from sand and wind. Ancient cities like Ur for example are primarily excavated in the barest foundations for its average city since without human aid to repair yearly damage to a building the sand will erode the mud structure gradually over time. Stone fares much better but gets eroded as well. Larger buildings can withstand the test of time the most because of their size.

When a city is abandoned it is common to use the bricks of the old city to build a new city, so essentially they get dismanteled. In other cases a fire or natural disaster might destory a building and a new building is build on top of the old foundation, much like today and therefore pushing the oldest remains into the earth.

In rare occurences the ground in unstable and a building can sink into the ground, this is happening to a cathedral in mexico and the Leaning Towel of Pisa right now.

Answer 3

Consider this. When those ruins were built in the first place, some of them had nothing special about it but a simple structure. Let's for example you decided to build a new house over your existing house. While your existing house is being demolished, you left in your room a can of Coke, which currently for you, a can of Coke is nothing but a scrap metal. So bulldozer is bringing down your house and that can of Coke is being buried somewhere is the rubble. Now let's assume that some reason Coca-Cola gets broke and also after many years all beverages are served in a form of pills. So the years passing by and and after a thousand years people start talking about that famous beverage that used to sell all over the globe and it was served in an aluminium can. So one day while people are digging to create an underground supersonic train, they find your aluminium can of Coke. For you is just a can worth nothing (maybe 5 cents if you recycle it :) ), for them though, would be a great discovery. And this is how ancient ruins end up underground. That is for small objects, for bigger ones, like pillars and whole buildings, are usually because they are buried because of the vegetation that is growing.

Answer 4

Pay attention, ok! In the Holy Bible (Nahum 1:3) it states that the ". . .the clouds are the dust of (the invincable) God's footsteps." So there was a time when God stopped walking on the earth and clouds fell and covered the earth. Only answer that makes sense!

Answer 5

There are many factors which lead to burial. We call it deposition in archaeology. Many ruins are simply in areas that have been abandoned, and slowly are covered by animals, vegetation, and soil while there are no people to maintain the area. Sometimes natural disasters like volcanoes or floods cover large areas very quickly, and preserve things in situ. And sometimes a site is not entirely abandoned, but it is not cared for, and people slowly forget about the ruins until they are completely unrecognizable.

Answer 6

Humans always pride themselves to be a higher species because of their ability to think and make decisions. In my opinion, the ability to think is starting to get in the way of our lives. Because people think, and everyone think differently, quarrels and fights are started. Because people think, their school essays get discredited; students are not supposed to think, they are supposed to 'think' like people of the past who had written some books or some form of evidence and include those in the essays. Because people think, those who don't think have to conform to the ideas of the former. Because people think, they cannot come to a decision about some things and it will always be there, never-ending, never gonna be solved. Because people think. Too much in fact. Wouldn't it be good if everyone just do things without thinking too much? Go for it. On impulse. On instinct. Would that make things better? Look what has all the thinking done to us. Yes, we have the technology, the entertainment and everything else which people of the past did not have but we no longer have the simplicity in people. I'm not saying that people in the past did not think but they were smarter. They don't think so much. What's the point of thinking so much and still no conclusion and decision could be made? Doesn't that make you feel worse?

Bottomline: we think too much. Don't k. To whoever this is applicable to.

Answer 7

I've heard it said, that if you put a tree in the ground, like, 3 inches a year sink into the ground, from the shifts in the ground, leaves, and rain falling on it. So, they can approximate the number of years something has been in the ground by the number of inches, or feet down they are in the ground.

Answer 8

Volcanic eruptions have covered many ancient cities / relics under thick layers of mud and dush.

Answer 9

usually a natural disaster happens. like atlantis- it was buried under volcanic ash after one of the biggest recorded volcanic eruptions ever. It's not that it slowly gets dirty.

Answer 10

most were buried by Vocanoes, and the earth changes dailty, so over thousands of years things are to get buried