http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1923794.stm
Thursday, 11 April, 2002, 15:54 GMT 16:54 UK
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The
ruins, which are off the coast of Mahabalipuram, cover many square
kilometres.
A
further expedition to the region is now being arranged which will
take place at the beginning of 2003.
'International
significance'
The
discovery was made on 1 April by a joint team of divers from the
Indian National Institute of Oceanography and the Scientific
Exploration Society based in Dorset, UK.
Expedition leader
Monty Halls said: "Our divers were presented with a series of
structures that clearly showed man-made attributes.
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"This
is plainly a discovery of international significance that demands
further exploration and detailed investigation."
During the
expedition to the site, divers came across structures believed to
be man-made. One of the buildings appears to be a place of
worship.
Jealous
Gods
The
myths of Mahabalipuram were first set down in writing by British
traveller J Goldingham, who visited the South Indian coastal town
in 1798, at which time it was known to sailors as the Seven
Pagodas.
The
myths speak of six temples submerged beneath the waves with the
seventh temple still standing on the seashore.
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One
of the expedition team, Graham Hancock, said: "I have argued for
many years that the world's flood myths deserve to be taken
seriously, a view that most Western academics reject.
"But
here in Mahabalipuram, we have proved the myths right and the
academics wrong."
Scientists now want
to explore the possibility that the city was submerged following
the last Ice Age. If this proves correct, it would date the
settlement at more than 5,000 years old.
Ruins recently discovered in southern
Peru could be the ancient "lost city" of Paititi, according to
claims that are drawing serious but cautious response from
experts.
The presumptive lost city, described in written records as a stone
settlement adorned with gold statues, has long been a grail for
explorers—as well as a lure for local tourism businesses.
A commonly cited legend claims that Paititi was built by the Inca
hero Inkarri, who founded the city of Cusco before retreating into
the jungle after Spanish conquerors arrived.
On January 10 Peru's state news agency reported that "an
archaeological fortress" had been discovered in the district of
Kimbiri and that the district's mayor suggested it was the lost
city.
Mayor Guillermo Torres described the ruins as a 430,000-square-foot
(40,000-square-meter) fortification near an area known as Lobo
Tahuantinsuyo.
Few other details about the site were offered, but initial reports
described elaborately carved stone structures forming the base of a
set of walls.
The state media report quotes Torres as saying the area will be
"immediately declared" a cultural tourism site.
Officials from the Peruvian government's Cusco-based National
Institute of Culture (INC) met with Torres on Tuesday, according to
Francisco Solís, an INC official.
"It is far too early to make any definitive judgments," Solís told
National Geographic News. "We are going to dispatch a team to
investigate."
Officials expect more details to emerge in the coming days, he
said.
Legend of Paititi
Paititi is believed to have been located somewhere east of the
Andes Mountains in the rain forest of southeastern Peru,
southwestern Brazil, or northern Bolivia (see
map).
In 1600 a missionary reported seeing a large "city of gold" in the
region where Paititi is believed to have been built, according to
archival records discovered by an Italian archaeologist in
2001.
However, the location of the newfound site falls counter to where
historical records indicate Paititi should be, Solís said.
Officials were nonetheless intrigued by the possibilities, he
added.
The first task will be to determine if the newfound ruins are the
work of the Inca or pre-Inca ethnic groups, Solís said.
(Read related story:
"80 Ancient 'Cloud Warrior' Skeletons Found in Peru Fort"
[September 26, 2007].)
Gregory Deyermenjian, a U.S.-based psychologist and explorer who
has led many expeditions to investigate the Paititi legend, said
many people in the tourism-rich region of Cusco have embraced the
legend as a business promotion.
But he said the claims could have merit, as there are still many
important sites to be found.
"It is a bit off the beaten path but still within the Inca's
reach," Deyermenjian said. "I'm very interested to know
more."
Daniel Gade, professor emeritus in geography at the University of
Vermont, cautioned about jumping to conclusions.
"Paititi is frequently the first thing people mention when
something like this is found," Gade said, adding that there are
many ruins in the jungle regions of the area.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080116-lost-city.html
The first physical clues to a long-rumored town that existed on
the site of present-day Alexandria have been uncovered—by
accident.
While searching under the waves of Alexandria's East Bay for Greek
and Roman ruins, archaeologists discovered signs of building
construction 700 years older than Alexander the Great's invasion of
Egypt.
The conquerer founded Alexandria in 332 B.C. (Related:
"Alexander the Great Conquered City via Sunken Sandbar" [May
15, 2007].)
The new find is "the first hard evidence" of Rhakotis, a town
mentioned in several histories of the region but whose existence
had never been substantiated, said geoarchaeologist Jean-Daniel
Stanley of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural
History.
And the results, which are published in the August issue of the
journal GSA Today, were "a bit of serendipity," Stanley
said.
Sunken Surprise
Stanley has helped the Franck Goddio Society and Egypt's Supreme
Council of Antiquities search for clues to what might have caused
the structural failure of Greek- and Roman-era buildings, roads,
and piers now sitting at the bottom of the bay.
The team sunk a half-dozen vibracores—vibrating three-inch
(eight-centimeter) hollow tubes—into the muck and silt of the bay's
floor.
The tubes contained layered soil samples, or cores—some as long as
20 feet (7 meters).
Stanley took his samples back to Washington, D.C., and dated them
using a radiocarbon technique.
Though he was searching for cracked or damaged rocks that might
suggest how Greek-era structures had failed, he was surprised to
find older signs of human endeavor.
The cores turned up lead and human waste that were more than 3,000
years old—evidence of a significant settlement centuries before
Alexander stormed Egypt.
Stanley assembled a team of specialists in terrestrial magnetism,
anthropology, paleobiology, and geology to examine the core
samples.
After a few years of study, the team confirmed the findings did
indeed point to Rhakotis.
In addition to the 3,000-year-old lead, which was used for
construction, the cores contained stone building materials from
central and southern Egypt.
"There are signs of a flourishing settlement going back to
Pharaonic times, but it's too early to say anything about it,"
Mohamed Abdel-Maqsud, an Alexandria expert from the Supreme Council
of Antiquities, told the Associated Press.
Jean-Yves Empereur, director of the Center for Alexandrian Studies,
said he had not yet read the findings and could not comment.
Sailor Haven
The city's bay, anchored by the island—now a peninsula—of Pharos,
has long been known as a haven for sailors. The bay is even
mentioned in Book Four of Homer's Odyssey: "Therein is a
harbor with good anchorage, whence men launch the shapely ships
into the sea. ..."
When Alexander arrived in 332 B.C., he apparently agreed with
Odysseus's reasoning. His new Egyptian capital would be close
enough to the Nile for southern travel, but far enough away that
seasonal flooding wouldn't be a problem.
Ptolemy I, Alexander's political heir, built the nearly 500-foot
(152-meter) Lighthouse of Alexandria on Pharos, one of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World.(See
an illustration of the lighthouse.)
The lighthouse served as both a beacon and a symbol of Alexandria's
greatness until a pair of earthquakes sent it tumbling into the bay
1,600 years later. Alexandria today is a breezy Mediterranean city
of five million people.
The next step for researchers will be unmasking the culture and
people of Rhakotis, now the bay's earliest known inhabitants.
"Were they seamen, agriculturalists, traders?" Stanley said. "We
don't yet know."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/2411456.html
Everything kena submerged in the water...hey, maybe global warming
is just a normal phenom!!! Anyway, the energy on earth is finite,
no matter what you turn it from something to another, the total
engery is still the same, right?!!!!