One small point to correct/adjust is the idea that these sites were “ignored.”

The pyramids have been a tourist attraction for thousands of years. The Romans talked about visiting them. I’m guessing there was never a time when they weren’t of interest to people in the area. Same for something like the Colosseum, Parthenon, or Pantheon. They might not have always prioritized preservation, but they certainly didn’t forget they existed.

Reusing stones from ancient ruins used to be a widespread practice. I remember hearing a story, not sure how true it is, that the ottomans had plans to use the giza pyramids as a quarry. The practice of grinding up old mummies is almost as ancient as the mummies themselves. Used mainly for fertilizer I believe, and I think it was in vogue as a paint pigment for a while.

I know there are places, especially around the Mediterranean, where you can see foundation stones still etched with ancient hieroglyphic/whatever scrip just thrown in willie nillie.

I won’t condone everything the British museum has done, but a lot of these artifacts wouldn’t exist if they weren’t shipped off. Caring about the past and the artefacts left behind, while by no means new thing, most people for most of history didn’t seem to give two shits. Probably more concerned with not starving etc…

The Colosseum was never abandoned (apart from initially, obvs). The reason its still standing is that people (including popes) kept paying for it to be maintained.

they weren’t, exactly.

neither the pyramids nor the coliseum in rome was ever truly lost to be rediscovered.

The Coliseum wasn’t even necesarily ‘abondoned’, but had rather been repurposed for workshops and housing after it was damaged in earthquakes, and in any case there just wasn’t the interest in the games there used to be. It costs money and resources to keep things up. especially old things, and the people who owned it found that, keeping the games going simply weren’t worth it.

For they pyramids… they were only ‘rediscovered’ by western people. Keep in mind, they were tombs, massive, expensive-to-maintain tombs. for long-dead rulers. Nobody went inside them becuase they’re tombs, and in any case, nobody kept them up because, again, it costs money and resources to do that. And as for exploring their chambers… it takes a certain kind of arrogance to do that, too.

In other places, like the pyramids in south america, they’re lost because the civilization that built them died out, and the jungle reclaimed that land, hiding them. (mayan temples, for example.) Others were, similar to the egyptian pyramids, never actually lost to the culture that built it.

You may notice a trend here. These places are old, and take money, resources and effort to maintain. When times are hard, no one is spending it on upkeeping something that just sits there. not unless there’s a very important reason to do so.

My guess would be that as people lost their homes, they started to inhabit places like that like the homeless founder bridges and such these days. Well, not the pyramids so much, but the colloseum definitely. It likely then became dangerous to be in that area. So they kept the structure up the best they could but weren’t worried about part that didn’t provide cover from weather.

Not an answer to your question but I would like to point out I just listened to Fall of Civilizations’ episode on the Mayan Empire and the Spaniards came over and brought almost everything down, used them as slave labor and occupied their lands.