Oldest cities/towns in province/state?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I always love how the pyramids were already a tourist site during Roman times. The Roman graffiti on the Sphinx is well known, but IIRC they've even uncovered the remains of souvenir stands where they sold mini-pyramids to travelers.

They would have looked much more awe inspiring TBH before the Arab armies stripped the limestone facades to build Cairo.

Actually, they were tourist attractions well before that--at least during Hellenistic times and even during the New Kingdom (c. 1570- c.1069 BCE). Remember that the Great Pyramid of Cheops was built 1000 years before that (c. 2580–2560 BCE).

[Pedestrian]

National Geogrpahic recently ran a piece about what they argue may have actually been the first true "city", a place called Çatalhöyük on the Anatolian plain of Turkey which existed from approximately 7100 BC to 5700 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC.

Among other fascinating things about the place was that it didn't have streets as we know them (possibly since its people didn't have wheels or ride animals though they did domesticate cattle). The inhabitants got from place to place over the rooftops and buried their dead under the floor where they slept.

Çatalhöyük has strong evidence of an egalitarian society, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious hierarchy, for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status, as typically found in Paleolithic cultures . . . .

Domestic interiors supposedly looked like this (quite livable, actually):


Same source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Çatalhöyük

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Uppsala was founded in 1477 vs. Heidelberg in 1386, Oxford in 1167 (although there was teaching onsite earlier), Salamanca in 1134 and Bologna in 1088.

Uppsala is what I had in mind when I referred to "Nordic Europe" but even those other examples don't make Harvard or Laval look like Johnny-Come-Latelys as much as one would thing.