when a unit vectors from a city but both the city it is going to and the city it came from are razed the unit dies in a subsequent turn, but if the unit was a hero are the items it carried left on the ground somewhere or are they lost??

I know that if you drop the items of a hero in transit, they will appear at the destination city.

For the situation you describe, I think they are lost. However, they should return to the item pool, and can be awarded again as quest rewards, or be sold by merchants.

Thank you for the reply. I scoured the map and never was able to find the items so they are indeed lost. I was not aware that they get added back into the pool of items available though.