Help from wikipedia: On March 8, 1886, members of the Royal Geographical Society in London listened attentively to the story of American Gilarmi Farini, who had returned from a trip to the Kalahari. Among other things, he told them about the discovery in the desert of a dilapidated city covered with sand. The same lecture was read on November 7, 1885 to members of the Berlin Geographical Society. It later became the basis for a book published shortly thereafter. This is how this legend was born. “We camped at the foot of a mountain,” he wrote, “by a rocky ridge that in its appearance resembled a Chinese wall after an earthquake. It turned out to be the ruins of a huge structure, covered with sand in places. We took a careful look at these ruins, nearly a mile long. They were a pile of huge hewn stones, in some places between which traces of cement were clearly visible. The stones of the upper row were heavily weathered, some of them looked like a table on one short leg.
Farini and his companions announced the discovery of the ruins of a lost city in the Kalahari. However, none of the many subsequent expeditions were able to find traces of it. This raises the question: did the lost city even exist?
In general, the wall was in the shape of a semicircle, within which, about forty feet apart, were heaps of masonry in the shape of an oval or obtuse ellipse and a half feet high. The base was flat, but there was a notch on the sides about a foot from the edge. Some of these structures were hewn from solid stone, others consisted of several blocks carefully fitted to each other. Since all of them were in one way or another covered with sand, we ordered our people to excavate the largest of them with shovels (this work was clearly not to their taste) and found that the sand protected the joints from destruction. The excavation took almost a whole day, which aroused considerable indignation from our guide Jan. He could not understand why it was necessary to dig up old stones. For him, this activity seemed like a waste of time. I explained to him that these are the remains of a city, or a place of worship, or a cemetery of a great people who lived here, perhaps many thousands of years ago.
We dug up sand in the middle of the semicircle, and found a pavement twenty feet wide, lined with large stones. The outermost ones were oblong and lay at right angles to the inner ones. This pavement was crossed by another similar pavement, forming a Maltese cross. Apparently, in the center of it there was once some kind of altar, column or monument, as evidenced by the preserved foundation - dilapidated masonry. My son tried to find some hieroglyphs or inscriptions, but found nothing. Then he took some photographs and sketches. Let more knowledgeable people than me judge by them when and by whom this city was built."
This was the first and last description of the "lost city". It appeared in Farini's book Across the Kalahari Desert, published in London in 1886, and a little earlier - with several other details - sounded in a report to the Geographical Society.
I think that you have already understood the fact that no one else found this city. Although we tried very, very hard. The Kalahari Desert is only covered with sand almost all year round. Except for spring. In the spring it is covered with a real carpet of vegetation. Small lakes glisten throughout the desert. The rain works miracles with her. But gradually the desert dries up. And now the sand covers it with a yellow shroud. You can't see anything under the sand. The legend of the stone city has remained a legend. Many scholars believe that there were no stone cities in Africa. Since the indigenous people were real savages. They didn't even know the wheel. Moreover, they could not build capital structures. And so huge even more so. The one who could build such a city possessed technology and knowledge. Could support a complex stone city system. And it is not at all clear where these builders came from? Where did they disappear later? And how long has it been? Thousands or millions of years ago? There are no answers to these questions.
But the city itself is. As the American scientist said, the city was and is in the very heart of the Kalahari Desert. It is located in the most uninhabited part of the Ghanzi District of Botswana. Its exact coordinates are: -22.534852 °, 23.133089 °. The dimensions of the ancient city are approximately two kilometers. Outside, the city is surrounded by a dilapidated wall, very thick. Something similar to the Great Wall of China. There are several buildings in the center. One with a round dome is very well preserved. The remains of huge, stone buildings are visible around the entire perimeter of the city. There are even fragments of footpaths. This city is visible only in spring. This is clearly visible on images from space. In the summer everything dries up there and the sand covers this artifact in a thick layer. Unfortunately, the government of this country does not know about what is on its territory. Of course it's a pity. Since if the artifact was found,then there would be no end of tourists. Here's a story.
Gilarmi Farini.
Promotional video:
Drawings of the city he found.
Kalahari travel map.
General view of the ancient city.
Stone building in the city center.
Close-up of it.
Remains of an ancient fortress wall.
Another wall.
Building in the city center.
Wreckage and walking trail.
Also fragments of buildings.
The foundation of a large building.
Valentin Degterev. Internet journalist. Specialization in the genre of searching for various artifacts.