ITT, ancient RUINS, ruined cities, oh look on my works, ye mighty and despair!

I do actually really love ruined WWII fortifications, so if they are properly abandonned and ruined I will allow them.

(What I don't want, is loads of decaying industrial factories and the like. Those have their own thread, I believe. I want castles and forts and abbeys and mysterious arrangements of rocks that you can't quite tell what they ever were.)

((Also, follies, though not technically ancient, are cool enough to be allowed))

http://www.yourlocalweb.co.uk/images/pictures/02/82/mow-cop-folly-27458.jpg

Better photos here:

http://www.mowcop.com/

I don't know if this napoleonic fort fits with the above criteria, but it was heading that way, being somewhat on fire when we passed it

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2246/1880122176_327d9c73ae.jpg

It wasn't on fire, they were just burning junk in the central courtyard, IIRC. What a weird place that was! I was trying to remember where the odd fort-like folly (?) along the coast towards the Needles was, but got distracted by work.

http://www.jacklondonpark.com/WolfHouse3-1.JPG

Jack London's Wolf House

Wow! What are those odd fireplaces that seem to be suspended in mid air? Were there presumably another story or two in wood that is now gone?

Yeah. He and his wife built their dream house

http://www.fineartandhistory.com/images/wolfhouse-bw.jpg

And several weeks before they were to move in, it burned.

SOUTHWEST REPREZENT!

Rhyolite, Nevada

http://photos.igougo.com/images/p7274-Rhyolite-Cook_Bank.jpg

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Mesa_verde_cliff_palace_close.jpg

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

http://planetpooks.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/chaco-canyon.jpg

Canyon de Chelly

http://www.expeditionswest.com/adventures/2003/canyon_de_chelly_2003/images/4.jpg

Nazca, Peru

http://westcoastconnection.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/nazca-lines1.gif

Those cliff dwellings are the BIZNIZZ. I was hoping for strange stuff I hadn't seen before and those are amazing. That last one with the two gaping caves on either side is almost lovecraftian.

It may not look like much, but here's the Lost City Of Ubar

http://www.davestravelcorner.com/photos/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_Oman-Ubar.JPG

The story of its rediscovery is pretty amazing and is like a roundup of everything I find cool: lost cities, the space shuttle, ancient roadways, and desert road tripping. If drone rock fit into it somehow I'd completely lose it.

Tenochtitlan

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Ruins_of_Tenochtitlan.JPG

Machu Picchu

http://onearthtravel.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/machu-picchu.jpg

Serpent Mound, Ohio

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2DP3vFOI5tc/SPr7KZL4tzI/AAAAAAAABtw/jt-tAqHeW-A/s400/serpentmoundpc.jpg

The architecture is so different from what I'm used to. Like they're building these massive structures and not even using arches. So strange looking and beautiful. (My archetypical idea of "ruins" clearly involves massive pointy gothic arches because I'm used to medieval Euro stuff.)

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon (can't stress how U&K a visit to Chaco Canyon is... there's a reason why Sagan put in Cosmos)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Chaco_Canyon_Pueblo_Bonito_doorways_NPS.jpg

Chaco canyon is all the more intriguing because there's every indication it was not inhabited.

Blythe Intaglios. Nazca isn't the only place where there are ancient geoglyphs. There's about 200 of these along the Colorado River in California and Arizona

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/3140812745_3c6c9c9ea9.jpg

http://www.culturefocus.com/syria/pictures/palmyra-6small.jpg

Palmyra

Palenque

http://www.oddee.com/_media/imgs/articles/a101_Palenque1.jpg

http://www.naturephoto-cz.eu/photos/sevcik/palenque-mayan-ruins--mayan-ruins-1.jpg

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_tt5Fzuyo1nc/SB4L64QSJkI/AAAAAAAAFZQ/YLV0lcZgjns/s640/image1-12.jpg

Persepolis

Ephesus, Turkey

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/00/1b/2e/e4/celso-s-library-ephesus.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/348306257_19eb35196e.jpg

Had to google Palenque, coz yr first link didn't show, but is this the one, with the crazy vaguely pagoda shaped tower?

http://www.crystalinks.com/palenque.jpg

All Hail Chichen Itza

http://desktopnature.com/4271-2/Ancient+Mayan+Ruins_+Chichen+Itza_+Mexico.jpg

Had to google Palenque, coz yr first link didn't show, but is this the one, with the crazy vaguely pagoda shaped tower?

That's it. Palenque is pretty much o_O for off-the-charts Mayan architecture.

http://static.atlasobscura.com/images/place/michigan-central-station.10446.large_slideshow.jpg

Michigan Central Station

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/michigan-central-station-jeremy-blakeslee.jpg

MCS FAT

This is all reminding me of one of my little obsessions... GOBEKLI TEPE!!!

http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/Images/countries/Turkish%20pics/Gobeklitemple.jpg

Which might well be (if some historians are to be believed) the place where agriculture and, well, civilization as we know it (t.m.) or at least agriculture was invented!

x-posts NO NO NO NO NO, that's exactly the sort of thing I don't want. ANCIENT, I SAID ANCIENT.

Gobekli Tepe and Jericho and such are really fascinating.

xpost Jimmy, Shut the front door, that is amazing!
Can you go in there?

Yes, I'm sure it's amazing, but it's not a RUIN, it's an abandonned building. Not the same thing at all, and out of the remit of this thread. Pls don't ruin (ha) my beautiful ruin thread.

There was a cool video story on Vice mag's website about Detroit, touring this rundown old theater that was massive inside... I can't think of the name

Oops. Sorry.

We could have some of Heinrich Schliemann's Troy, mind you...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1431/565852078_aeb2a6de49.jpg

And Jericho's walls...

http://www.howardbloom.net/jericho_wall_color2.jpg

http://www.howardbloom.net/jericho_walls_b&w.jpg

http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/9915/wm/pd71831.jpg

Great Zimbabwe

Has anyone posted Petra yet?

http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/13735/_dsc3273-petra-web.jpg

the castle that sprung my family line, mayhaps? this is all my grandmother could surmise after extensive research. Turner painted it at some point.

http://www.enchantedtowy.co.uk/Dynevor-Castle-1.gif

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3597/3579570074_3904150827.jpg

Ctesiphon

http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/classics/history/bronze_age/full/17-10.jpg

Akrotiri, Santorini

The southern borderlands here between England & Wales (where the river Wye is the natural border) contain some utterly remarkable ruins. The comprehensive societal smash of the 11th century is felt all over in this landscape, as nothing says 'we welcome our new religious & cultural overlords' like a fuck-off massive castle, followed by a fuck-off massive abbey, built with carboniferous limestone from the fuck-off massive cliffs.
This is the ruined church of St James, built by monks & still used as a place of Christian worship until 1860 or so, despite it's remote & tricky position at a loop in the river at the bottom of the cliffs.
http://www.roughwood.net/ChurchAlbum/Monmouthshire/Lancaut/LancautImages/LancautStJames2004.jpg
http://www.roughwood.net/ChurchAlbum/Monmouthshire/Lancaut/LancautImages/LancautStJamesWest2004.jpg

There's also a shelf of rock poking out of the river Severn here which has a ruined arch, an early Christain site dedicated to St Twrog and occupied by at least two hermits who received alms in the 1200's.
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/54/56/545622_fd8906a2.jpg

Welsh ruins! Are there some images that are not displaying there?

(I can't remember the name of it, a country house built by a mad English nobleman (weren't they all?) which was supposed to be a picturesque half-ruined folly, but the tower was designed so badly that it fell down and rendered the whole house an actual ruin before the 19th Century was over. Oh what was its name, what am I thinking of?)

― Wheal Dream, Monday, 15 November 2010 14:49 (Yesterday)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonthill_Abbey

THAT IS THE ONE!!! Thank you so much. I was thinking "Fountains Abbey? Fontainbleu Abbey?" I know it was Font something.

Once he demanded that he would eat a Christmas dinner only if it would be served from new abbey kitchens and told his workmen to hurry. The kitchens collapsed as soon as the meal was over.

here are two images of my own to replace the hotlink denied white void in my post. St. James at Lancaut:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbzf29CBxH1qdu6dfo1_r1_500.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbzffrDny11qdu6dfo1_500.jpg

I thought this was a gollum thread like "It ruins us - it RUINS us!"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/LaasqorayRuins09.JPG/800px-LaasqorayRuins09.JPG

las khorey, somalia

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ghalib/018/graphics/afghandesertruins.jpg

https://farm7.staticflickr.com/6198/6052617126_7cab383510_z.jpg

afghanistan

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Peru_-_Trekking_from_Urubamba_019_-_Incan_ruins_(8149153489).jpg

the andes

http://www.ancient-code.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/83742062.4BfR9mqL.Pohnpei0501179eo.jpg

http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/thumbs/site_1503_0005-750-0-20160616154241.jpg

http://survincity.com/wp-content/uploads/images_4/nan-madol.jpg

http://www.ancient-code.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/83742065.5db77U2R.Pohnpei0501185eo.jpg

nan madol, micronesia

http://www.beevar.com/upload/b/f0/bf0cbaf655c83a9a.jpg

http://whenonearth.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/kolmanskop-namibia-ghost-town-woe1.jpg

kolmanskop, namibia

https://erasingborders.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/img_2927.jpg?w=604&h=453

tamtoc, mexico

http://www.bulgariansun.eu/images/preslav1.jpg

preslav, bulgaria

old photos of old ruins takes it over the top...

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/5634/32225563.96/0_abaad_845b3b2b_orig

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QW1PU8eLkxk/UUMlJBK0M-I/AAAAAAACgxA/uGXxh_GiWak/s640/Photographs+of+Old+Delhi+from+The+19th+Century+(24).jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eu5CdSz7n20/UUMlFea2juI/AAAAAAACgwA/YpLfdtjKayc/s640/Photographs+of+Old+Delhi+from+The+19th+Century+(16).jpg

http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/9328/97833783.526/0_be61b_2d2e30d3_XXXL.jpg

delhi

I agree with marcos that pre-Columbian Americas definitely bring the ruination mojo.

I very much liked Uxmal, in the Yucatan, particularly the may the Magician's Pyramid comes up out of the trees like O HAI THERE

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9Qd3xWCJFeQ/maxresdefault.jpg

is that the one in star wars?

No, apparently that was Tikal (learned this just now from, ugh, Wookieepedia)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Panglao_watchtower%2C_Bohol.png

very taken with this filipino watch tower

al-waqfa 'ala al-atlal