Museum of Lost Things

True Tales of Fabled Treasures, Legendary Cities, and Mythical Creatures That Vanished From History

Where is Genghis Khan’s hidden grave? What lost manuscripts on Troy were destroyed along with the Library of Alexandria? What forgotten civilizations are buried beneath the Amazon jungle? And what ever happened to Yamashita’s gold, a multi-billion-dollar stockpile of stolen Japanese treasures from World War II?

The Museum of Lost Things tackles all those mysteries and so many more—the fabled relics, legendary cities, mythical species, and undeciphered languages that have bedeviled seekers for centuries. Spanning a million years of history, this enthralling narrative collects the most spellbinding tales of these experiences and weaves them into a thoughtful meditation on what all that loss means across the sweep of human history and the scope of human lives, including:

*The long-lost city of Troy
*The hidden tomb of Genghis Khan
*The destruction of the fabled library of Alexandria
*The near-destruction of the Mona Lisa and other art
*The decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
*The extinction—and potential resurrection—of dodos, mammoths, and other iconic species

Provocative, surprising, and above all entertaining, this globe-trotting narrative acknowledges the sheer scale of humanity’s losses, celebrates the treasures we have managed to retain, and reveals why they continue to captivate us centuries later.