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What are the 10 oldest cities in the world?

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  • 25-06-2013 7:37pm
    #1
    vard
    Registered Users Posts: 537 ✭✭✭


    For various reasons, all of which are unimportant, I need to get a list of the 10 oldest cities in the world. I know it's a difficult question; I've searched online, and sources I've found offer conflicting information.

    Damascus is generally agreed to be the oldest - even though there are some which give the title to a variety of other cities, I'm happy enough to settle on that one at least!


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    #2
    Ruu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,622 ✭✭✭Ruu


    Moved from Popular Science, you may get a better response here.


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    #3
    TheMilkyPirate
    Registered Users Posts: 5,967 ✭✭✭TheMilkyPirate


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_time_of_continuous_habitation


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    #4
    Reader1937
    Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭Reader1937


    baraca wrote: »
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_time_of_continuous_habitation
    Um, could be me, but didn't spot any Indus valley cities there?


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    #5
    Reoil
    Registered Users Posts: 1,126 ✭✭✭Reoil


    And this has what to do with archaeology?


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    #6
    Reader1937
    Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭Reader1937


    Perhaps the thought was that someone here dug one of them up?


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    #7
    robp
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,934 ✭✭✭robp


    Reoil wrote: »
    And this has what to do with archaeology?

    Everything to do with archaeology I would have thought. Surely the dating of the earliest cities is built on archaeological excavation and carbon dating as opposed to historical records.


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    #8
    jimmyarch
    Registered Users Posts: 23 ✭jimmyarch


    This is a tricky question and likely not really possible to answer.

    What exactly do you mean? Is it what are the oldest known urban centres? Or what are the earliest cities that are still inhabited?

    We are lucky with cities like Dublin to be able to define relatively clearly when urban settlement began and see a truly continuous development of the one place into a modern city. However, this is not the case for the earliest urbanism in the Levant. Some cities such as Damascus claim continuous occupation but I sense that this is based more on tourism wishes than archaeological science.


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