Old stories that scholars treat as myth can hold real memories of places and events. Digging guided by an epic, a palace legend or a scripture story turned up real cities, and clay tablets carrying their own flood story.
Some of the biggest breakthroughs in recovering the past came from people outside the profession, such as a merchant chasing a legendary city, a schoolteacher reading a lost script, or an amateur outmanoeuvring officials. Their success often brought open conflict with established scholars.
When conquerors seize a civilisation's treasure and destroy its ruling layer, they cut the culture off from its own memory. Later explorers find abandoned cities that no living tradition can explain, and they are left asking where the builders came from. Grave robbers do the same damage on a smaller scale by reaching tombs before anyone can study them.