I visited Butrint Archeological Site yesterday in southern Albania and saw that the ancient city is buried by at least 2 or 3 metres of earth, that archeologists are excavating to uncover the site.
What is the mechanism for these ancient cities becoming so buried in a relatively short amount of time?
In: 17
There’s lots of different ways this can happen:
– Dust can blow in on the breeze and settle in the corners providing a place for seeds to settle, grow and drop leaves which rot into dirt (similar to how you’d get dust in your home and garden if you didn’t clean, but over much longer time)
– Animals can bring in nesting materials which decompose in the buildings and animal poop also turns to dirt after a while – they like to nest and hang out in abandoned buildings because they’re sheltered from wind and rain within the walls.
– A layer or two can be created by the roof or upper floors disintegrating.
– Big weather events can blow in deep layers of leaves which rot
– Particularly in desert environments sand or dust storms bring in dirt which is never cleaned up from abandoned buildings
– Major events like rainstorms, floods or tsunamis can wash mud from surrounding land which settles in buildings because the walls slow the flow of water so much that it doesn’t have the energy to carry out the dirt it washes in – or if the flood leads to standing water the water can evaporate over time leaving the dirt behind
– Volcanic eruptions can spew dust and ash into the air which then fall on the buildings – sometimes enough to cover a whole city in just a day or two (this is how Pompeii got buried)
Edit: fixed some punctuation
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