What is a city, though? “A big town”, you might say. But how big? What qualifies as a city differs dramatically around the Earth - the UK city of St Davids has a population of just 1,750 people, while the Japanese city of Tokyo has a population of 37.5 million people.
The earliest settlements resembling a city that archaeologists have discovered are Jericho in Palestine and Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey (pictured above). Both date back to the eighth millennium BC. But Uruk in what is now Iraq, famous for being the home of Gilgamesh, probably gets the crown for the first true city – boasting something like 85,000 residents at its peak in 3100 BC. Today, Uruk lies in ruins – having been slowly abandoned after the Euphrates river shifted its course, depriving it of easy access to water.
We can only imagine what caused the original inhabitants of Minecraft’s ancient cities to abandon their homes. Was it some kind of underground collapse? Or a conflict, perhaps with the illagers, piglins, or Endermen? Or did the wardens simply not like neighbors? We’ll likely never know, but if you find any interesting clues in your investigations of ancient cities, please let us know. For some reason, none of the archaeologists we’ve sent down there have returned...
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