We visited only a few ancient cities on the tour. The theme is common throughout: each city went through centuries of transformations between changes of power and religion. If it did survive it all, it would be ruined by earthquakes. The saddest story repeated too many times and one I can resonate is that many artifacts found in these cities are on display in museums in UK, Germany, Italy and Russia. They were smuggled out mostly by German and Italian archaeologists who initiated the excavations.