Sunken City Found Off Of India 470
Raindeer writes "A city only known from old myths about seven pagodas and thought by Western scientists not have existed, was found off the coast of India. The myths speak of six temples submerged beneath the waves with the seventh temple still standing on the seashore. The myths also state that a large city once stood here which was so beautiful the gods became jealous and sent a flood that swallowed it up entirely in a single day. " With the purported discovery of a city off of Cuba, as well as the the finding of Herakleion underwater archaeology is doing well.
So which one is Atlantis? (Score:3, Funny)
(intended as humor)
The one off Gibraltar (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So which one is Atlantis? (Score:2, Informative)
Base 10 (Score:3, Informative)
It's not just the date that's off by a power of 10 in Platos story, but also the dimensions. This consistency makes it seem very likely that it's simply a result of a greek mistake while interpreting egyptian numbers.
The island is also called Santorini, btw, and it was not the capital of the Minoans, at least during the times we know of, and neither was Minoa... the capital was Knossos on Crete, Minoa is closer to Thera. However, hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't remember any reason to rule out the hypothesis that Thera was the site of the Minoan capital in prehistoric times, before the explosion?
Anyway, it's a far better fit than any other site I've seen for the Atlantis story, the details all seem to fit, as long as we change the actual numbers consistently by factors of 10.
Re: So which one is Atlantis? (Score:4, Informative)
> The island is called Thera - "Fear" in Greek according to the TLC Documentry. One problem is that the explosion occurred 900 instead of 9000 years prior to Plato's original story. This however can be explained by difference in number systems, or clerical errors.
Or maybe Atlantis didn't exist at all?
Just because some myths have historical underpinnings doesn't mean that all myths have historical underpinnings.
And when you have to start twisting the myth around a lot to make it match the "evidence", then you should really stop and wonder why you're trying so hard to make it match.
Moreover, Plato isn't exactly a good source of mythology. He was neither a historian nor a mythographer. He was a philosopher, and not a very deep one at that. (IMO he operated on about a 10th grade mentality.) He liked to write stories about things like how the ideal state would be constituted, and he used an idealized Socrates as a sock puppet in his writings.
Plato tells the Atlantis story in his Timaeus [mit.edu] . In particular, Plato tells a made-up story about a conversation between Socrates, Critias, and a couple of others, and in that story Critias tells a story he heard from another guy named Critias, and in that story the second Critias tells that he heard it from Solon, and in that story Solon tells that heard it from the Egyptian priests (along with a bunch of other drek). So we the recursively embedded stories Plato(Critias1(Critias2(Solon(Egyptians)))) -- and we know that the outermost story was a work of fiction (one of Plato's so-called dramatic dialogues). This is not a source that inspires a lot of confidence.
Once you get beyond that it makes a lot more sense to try to figure out what role the story played in whatever point Plato was trying to make with his polemic than it does exploring the world trying to find something that can be stretched to fit the story.
The story doesn't even appear to be real mythology, let alone real history.
<uncle>One more thing!</uncle> "Thera" doesn't mean "fear", it means "the hunt", "the chase", "pursuit", "the catch", or "hunting ground". And the name of the island may not even be the same word; Liddel and Scott list it under a separate entry.
Hopefully this gives everyone an idea why scientists and historians tend to scoff at claims that lost civilizations have been discovered, until verifiable evidence is in hand.
Re:So which one is Atlantis? (Score:2, Informative)
The Minoan capital was Knossos, not Minoa. Knossos is located on the island of Crete. Minoa is located on the island of Amorgos, in the Cyclades island group. The Cyclades also include the island of Thera/Santorini, referred to elsewhere in this thread.
Here's [agn.hol.gr] a map for your convenience.
Re:So which one is Atlantis? (Score:3, Interesting)
5000 years old (Score:3, Informative)
Just maybe, human civiliation is a lot older and spread much wider, earlier, than we tend to believe.
Re:5000 years old (Score:2)
Re:5000 years old (Score:4, Informative)
Re:5000 years old (Score:4, Funny)
Re:5000 years old (Score:3, Funny)
According to Sources:
The age of 5000 years has been verified by the finding of a 750MHz Athlon, which we all know is ancient by now.
The city was actually sunk by angry gods because, inspite of building wonderous temples, the inhabitants fooled around with creating restrictive copyright laws.
The decendents of all survivors live in Wooster, Ohio.
The Co$ claims it's the work of rampant Thetans and you really, really, really should believe them and send them lots of money.
Most of the worlds missing left socks were found inside the sunken temples.
No claims have yet been issued by Ankh-Morpork or Klatch, but armies and navies are quietly being assembled.
Through exhaustive research, i.e. I've totally made up.
Re:5000 years old (Score:3, Insightful)
That always buggers up the hypothesis that human cities have been around for a long time. Since C14 dating needs organic material and other dating methods are less accurate (other than tree-ring dating), you need to have organic material preserved. This means a specific chemical/depositional environment (anerobic is great--like the Black Sea).
Underwater arch has the BEST potential for making stunning discoveries that re-write the history books because of the preservation potential of many of these areas (and the lack of later humans trampling all over the earlier strata).
The only thing left to ponder is HOW this city got there. That will take some talented surficial geologists (not the oil finding structural kind our Uni't tend to produce) and a bit of luck. Looking forward to hearing more about this and the site off Cuba.
Re:5000 years old (Score:2, Informative)
Don't Dis-myth Out of Hand! (Score:4, Interesting)
One interesting question that is perhaps particularly revealing is, why are are so surprised whenever we find this stuff?
Re:Don't Dis-myth Out of Hand! (Score:2)
Tolkien, is that you? That was pretty much the premise of Tolkien's work.
Re:Don't Dis-myth Out of Hand! (Score:3, Interesting)
Around 8,000 years ago, the black sea was a freshwater lake about 2/3 of it's current size. It is now believed that there was a proto-civilization along it's shores. Then, water from the Mediterrainean broke through the strip of land at the Dardanelles. This caused a cataclysmic flood around the Black Sea area, inudating hundreds of square miles, including the proto-civilization.
Now the flood took about 48 hours to fill up the black sea. Everyone should have been able to escape. But over the millenia, as the story was told orally, embellishments were added on to it. You know how Granpa said he blocked the exploding grenade with his helmet, shot Heinrich Himmler, and did all that other crap during the war? Anyway, this story was told orally for 3,000 years before a distorted version of it was written down in the classic "Epic of Gilgamesh", the first great literary achievement.(read it. It's very good.)
The Flood legend was incorporated into pretty much every culture in the fetile crescent area, including the jewish culture.
Other legends: The indians of the Columbia Basin in WA st. also have a flood myth. This is from the devastating Missoula Floods. This series of floods was caused by an ice dam reapededly blocking the Clark Fork River. It formed a lake the size of Lk Eerie behind it and it was 2,000 feet deep. When the dam broke, it realesed a 2000 foot high wall of water, devastating everything and killing any indians in it's path. These floods also formed huge rock coulees all over the columbia basin.
Another one is Atlantis: This was probably the island of Thera near crete. It had a very technologically advanced Minoan city on it. Then one day, the Thera volcano exploded with a force many, many times more than the Krakatoa eruption. It sunk part of the island and also produced huge tidal waves.
Noah's Ark (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Noah's Ark (Score:3, Informative)
Ummm (Score:2)
Re:Ummm (Score:2)
Corroborated by Indian legend (Score:2)
To me, this points to one of two things:
1. A great flood (of some magnitude) or
2. A common cultural origin (more likely)
Re:Noah's Ark (Score:3)
Re:Noah's Ark (Score:5, Informative)
In Gilgamesh, the walls are made of "...burnt brick and good." (Sandars, 61) In the Bible, people come together, saying "...let us make bricks, and burn them thoughly," in order to create the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:3). The Jews regarded the Ziggarat (Summerian temple/pyramid/great public work) as a bad thing made of burnt brick. This smae structure was at the core of Summerian life. The same thing is described by both Summerians and Jews with very similar language (perhaps the building blocks of an oral tradition cum written document.
The flood is another major theme in both documents. However, the Jews saw the flood as a punishment. People were wicked and corrupt, so they had to be wiped from the face of the Earth. This was not done on a whim. In Gilgamesh, Enlil (one of the gods) says "the uproar of mankind is intolerableand sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel" and the gods decide to wipe out humanity on a whim so they can sleep (Sandars 108).
The Jews migrated out of Summaria, forsaking Summarian civilization to become sheperds. While many of the stories were turned on their heads to better fit the Jewish world view, many elements were taken from the familier Summerian stories. The fact that there are similarities is more likely evidence of common cultural heritage rather than common events in some long forgotton past.
References
Coogan, Michael D.
1991. The NewOxford Annotated Bible, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press:New York.
Sandars, N. K., trans. and ed.
1972. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin Books:London.
Re:Noah's Ark (Score:2)
Re:Noah's Ark (Score:2)
Warning Signs (Score:5, Funny)
RUN.
Sure, R'lyeh isn't supposed to be near India. But it could be a mobile home of the Elder Gods. =)
mobile homes of the elder gods (Score:3, Funny)
I always figured Hastur for trailer trash. He using that sweet-gum tree for an engine lift. I can tell you, it no picknick living next to That Which Can't Be Named. Up all hours, and the smell....
Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
on believing that civilization has only been
around
for the last 4 or 5 thousand years or so. After
all, if the genetic record is correct homo sapiens
have been around for a few hundred thousand years
at least and I find it far harder to believe that
in all that time all humans did was hunt and gather as opposed to them building cities and
towns. Carving blocks of stone , building roads
etc isn't rocket science and if some race had built
a city 100,000 years ago VERY little of it would
still be around today (Ice Ages notwithstanding).
Look at how little is left of most Roman ruins and
they're only 2000 years old!
Though Graham Hancock may come out with a lot of
BS at times , I think in this case he's spot on.
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not that they're intent on proving it; it's just that there's little or no evidence of any large settlements before then. What artifacts we do have are consistent with loosely organised, unsepcialised hunter-gatherer type societies. No big conspiracy, honestly.
And are you American by any chance? If you lived in Europe you'd realise the Romans left a LOT of stuff behind. And of course Roman civilisation goes back a couple of thousand years BC.
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:2)
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:2)
Prior to that it was just a land-grubbing, republican nation-state.
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
Homo Sapiens has been around for some 250k years. But they were our predecessors- we are classed as Homo Sapien Sapien- who've only been around for about 40k years. The Cro Mags. The difference between the Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapein Sapiens is that the latter, us, settled down, started farming, domesticating animals, using bows and arrows to hunt.
So while we can't rule out there were massive civilizations by an known race of humans (or aliens), judging by what science has uncovered, the cro mags were the first to settle in community groups that gave rise to civilization as we know it.
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:2)
Then you get climate changes which force the society to move to better climes, and this is what most likely makes leaps in development. If you have a mud house, then why make a wooden house or a stone house? But if you have no house and there is a lot of wood or stone lying around, then why not use these for building your new dwelling? Especially if the soil is not suitable for making mud houses! Necessity breeds invention?
Carving blocks of stone with wood or bone doesn't work! You need something that can carve that stone - perhaps harder stone like flint on softer stone? But not much would remain of a sandstone dwelling after 10,000 years! To cut decent stone that would last to today you need metal. And when did people find out how to make metal? People will be asking these questions for hundreds of years to come...
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:2)
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Carving blocks of stone , building roads etc isn't rocket science
Isn't it? Have you ever tried it? No fair using carbon-steel tools, either. For that matter, have you ever tried chipping flint to make stone tools? Or tried tanning and cutting a hide to make clothing? Again, no scissors, please.
In fact many of the "simple" technologies that we consider trivial because we can now do so much more are really anything but trivial. They were far from obvious and took a long time to develop and perfect.
And the idea of a road had to have been a blindingly brilliant insight at first. I mean, everyone knew how nice it was when a nice, broad, smooth path went where you wanted to go, but the idea of cutting and scraping the land to *make* it that way so that you could move people and goods easily... that can't have been obvious. Many of the peoples conquered by the Romans were both puzzled and awed by the Roman army's focus on and ability to construct roads. The whole road-building idea was *not* obvious, much less the techniques used to do it. But it was an extremely powerful idea, and a major part of why Rome was able to dominate so much of the world.
Heck, if I was the Cro-Magnon patent examiner, I'd have granted "Method for using rock and compacted soil for constructing broad and smooth artificial pathways to improve travel and transportation of people, goods, livestock and armies", wouldn't you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just wait until more exploration is done... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cities before the Ice Age? Whats the big deal? (Score:2)
Rome was a democratic society? (Score:2)
The city magistrates were elected (until Imperial times), but by (what would seem to us) a really screwy procedure. The popular assemblies, which qualify as direct democracy, only really became powerful at the time of the Gracchi, in the 2nd century BC. The Senate was a plutocracy (given that the primary qualification was a specific level of personal wealth).
Why however is Rome the canonical "really ancient civilization", and not, say, Sumeria? 753 BC, nothing.
Re:Rome was a democratic society? (Score:2)
the Irony of the entire situation is that the very act of self preservation that the Senate used ended up to be their eventual downfall.
thank-god we have all learned from that.
Western scientists must be pretty dumb! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Western scientists must be pretty dumb! (Score:2)
Ancient Civs (Score:3, Interesting)
Aaaanyhow, one of the arguments that I had used was that there are extinct civilizations that have only died out as recent as FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, and we, with all our fancy European-style education have yet to come within reasonable nearness to decyphering their written language.
So, I argued, what if... Something catastrophic happens again, and in a few thousand years, after civilization has dragged itself back up through the ashes to the point where its out exploring the seas again in galleys and colonizing the farthest reaches of the globe. What if... What if they stumble across the Yucca Mountain dump?
Now, they have absolutley no knowledge of what that yellow and black circle, divided up into sixths means. They're seeing metal signs with an indecypherable alien text on them. They find these vaults, and manage to tunnel in and are exposed to radiation. Potential catastrophy there...
Anyhow. Since I got to thinking about that, then I start thinking some more. What if it had already happened once? What if Jericho weren't really the "First City?" What if we humans became significantly advanced (pre-industrial age or so?) then got wiped out by the encroaching glaciation? Which would explain the decided lack of structures and monuments, with the notable exception of the alleged sunken cities in the Sea of Japan, off India and Cuba.
I read somewhere that the temples at Ankor could be upwards of 12k years old. Which predates the "Fertile Crescent" civs by at least a thousand years...
Just the ruminations of a crazy drunk that's been up for three days. Responses would be keen, a full-fucking-fledged discussion would rock.
Re:Ancient Civs (Score:2)
LV
Re:Ancient Civs (Score:2)
Take a laser of high enough energy to encourage radioactive material to fise until it reaches a suitably short half life and is safe to store? Say a half life of a couple months?
The neat part is that it may be possible to get more energy out of the reaction than we put in, at least for the first few cycles; uranium, plutonium, etc.
The advantages are twofold;no nuclear reactor would need critical masses, and nuclear waste would only be as dangerous as we choose not to degrade it, according to energy cost. If a half life of 100 years is acceptable, we can choose that. If a half life of 1000 years is acceptable, we can choose that.
This presupposes of course that research into laser induced fission proceeds on course.
Google search. [google.com]
Re:Ancient Civs - how to dispute them. (Score:3, Interesting)
Working of metals from early bronze days to the industrial revolution was really only possible because the raw ores themselves were either found on the surface or very near it. Even with a glacial age it would not explain the preponderance of such ores in many areas (some of which would not have been affected by glacial ice)
Let alone the fact that some of the advanced metals (or not so advanced - your choice) that we have today will easily survive glacial ice or be found in such quantity to reveal that "something" did exist.
Re:Ancient Civs - how to dispute them. (Score:2)
advanced civilization is possable with out using the resources that we use.
no need for what we have to be consdered advanced, just need a large population, a mature governmental system, and law enforcement. that is all.
Re:Ancient Civs (Score:3, Interesting)
> What if they [future civs] stumble across the Yucca Mountain dump?
This is getting slightly off-topic, but the nuclear industry has been researching how to warn future civilisations 10000 years later about nuclear waste.
There's some excerpts from a report here [halcyon.com] that are surprisingly interesting reading.
Amongst other things, the report discusses using earthworks and markers to try and convey an impression of danger and inhospitability - but, importantly, without making the waste repository look like it might contain anything valuable. After all, it did not take long for grave-robbers to break into the pyramids, curse or no curse...
April Fools? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone else find it interesting that the article says:
"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."
Sounds like it might have been a joke that the BBC picked up on about 10 days late...
Mac
Its always the same (Score:2)
Funny about the dates... (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, Hindu civilization itself is old but not that old. For temples of this kind, 1000 BC would be an optimistic early limit; 3000 BC is out of the question.
From this article [guardian.co.uk] it seems that the claim of 5000 years comes from Graham Hancock, a controversial writer about "lost civilizations". I'd like to see the opinion backed by some credible evidence.
Re:Funny about the dates... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not Hindu, Indus ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hancock disagrees, but then, as you say, he's not the most reliable source of evidence.
Re:Not Hindu, Indus ... (Score:2, Informative)
Old school scholars view is that the inhabitants of the civilization moved to the south after the collapse of the civilization (circa 1200BCE). We don't know much about prehistoric South India around 3000BC. There are no large scale sites that are associated with the IVC.
Current view of the IVC is that it spread over up to modern day Gujarat. There are several large scale sites in that state.
Shouldn't there be other large sites like the seven temples in South India if the Indus Valley Civilization was so prevalent. FYI, Mahapariburam is just south of Madras, which is pretty south.
OTOH, there are other more interesting archaeological sites in South India. The most interesting for me is those that belong to a megalith culture. The book I read said that one person (or more than one?) was about 2m (or more) high.
Re:Not Hindu, Indus ... (Score:2)
If so, it has nothing to do with the surviving shore temple, which is from the Pallava period in the 7th/8th century AD.
But I don't see any evidence for this Indus theory. It is also a very long way off from the Indus valley sites which are, well, in/near the Indus valley on the other side of the subcontinent, mainly in today's Pakistan (look at the map). The likely explanation is surely that this is a Pallava city dating from the same time as the surviving temple.
Re:Funny about the dates... (Score:2, Interesting)
He does provide an interesting link between alot of facts...and goes into detail about which facts are accepted, and which are not...and then provides usually compelling evidence for either side.
For example: Probably the easiest thing to point out is that the Pires Ries Map (I know I spelled that wrong) has a landmass drawn upon it that fits extremely closely with antartica...only problem is the the Pires Ries map was drawn up in the 1500's based upon a collection of older maps. Antartica was officially discovered in the late 1800s and has still not been entirely surveyed (to my knowledge at least) but enough major points of interest match to say it is a rendering of antartica before 2 miles thick of ice covered the continent.
Another good example would be water errosion found on the Sphinx in egypt. (the evidence is accepted by geologists, but denied by egyptologists) The last time enough water was in egpyt to account for that level of errosion is guessed to be about 10,000 bc or thereabout.
Some of it may be crap...but alot of these facts are extremely conspicous. I hope the reseachers find some more questions to ask based on these new ruins.
Re:Funny about the dates... (Score:3, Funny)
> I coulda sworn that the Bhavad Gita was about 5000 years old, dating back to near Mesopotamian age.
If you do decide to swear that, don't swear it on your yarbles or anything else you hold dear.
Re:Funny about the dates... (Score:2, Informative)
Interestingly, the first verse of Rig Veda says something like this (paraphrasing...)
"There was no truth before life, no falsehood, no sky, no space. Where was all hidden, who dug it up? Where was all the water?"
Sastry
April Fools? (Score:2, Interesting)
sea level rise (Score:3, Interesting)
If this proves correct, it would date the discovery at more than 5,000 years old.
Actually I thought the sea level rose about 120 meters at the end of the last ice age (starting about 20,000 years ago)
There are some interesting graphics here: One [truepath.com], Two [truepath.com], Three [truepath.com]
Re:sea level rise (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't believe, go pick up the nearest geology book and have a good read.
Re:sea level rise (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the periodic elements usually cite as contributing to an Ice Age usually vary over tens of thousands of years, not Millions. Check out thies graphs on Orbital eccentricity [state.il.us], Axis Tilt [state.il.us], and Precession of the Equinoxes [state.il.us]. There is a Composite Graph [state.il.us] as well.
End result is that we do knot know what actually causes the Ice Ages; these variations seem to be operating at the wrong time scale. More realistic factors include Plate tectonics [state.il.us] (the forming of Panama as a link block off the Pacific from the Atlantic) - Solar activity also indicates global warming on Mars [space.com], which would indicate that the sun is slowly warming up.
All of which puts the nature and duration of the current "warm period" into confusion.
But then, I find pictures like this of Mars [enterprisemission.com] fascinating, since it looks so much like standing water, when this is of course impossible. I don't know what to make of it. Damn good illusion, if nothing else
Here is the Text (Score:3, Informative)
An ancient underwater city has been discovered off the coast of south-eastern India.
Divers from India and England made the discovery based on the statements of local fishermen and the old Indian legend of the Seven Pagodas.
The ruins, which are off the coast of Mahabalipuram, cover many square miles and seem to prove that a major city once stood there.
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.
Expedition leader Monty Halls said: "Our divers were presented with a series of structures that clearly showed man-made attributes.
"The scale of the site appears to be extremely extensive, with 50 dives conducted over a three-day period covering only a small area of the overall ruin field.
"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, although they could only view part of what is a huge area suggesting a major city.
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.
The myths also state that a large city once stood here which was so beautiful the gods became jealous and sent a flood that swallowed it up entirely in a single day.
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 discovery at more than 5,000 years old.
How to veiw this (Score:4, Funny)
Southern Baptist -- "See? They worshipped their gods and look what our God did to them!"
Hindu -- "We were right all along."
Creationist -- "Let's see how long it will be before the evolutionists try to cover this one up."
Evolutionist -- "Where is my shovel?"
Historian -- "Legends really do rave a basis in fact, whoda thunk it?"
Captialist -- "Get your 6 temple tour here today!"
Di$ney -- "We are working on our new film, Searh for the six temples. PLease pay our Congressmen accordingly."
Mafia -- "Oh damn, there goes our hiding spot."
</humor>
<serious>
Our world is so huge and our history is so enormous. Why is it that when a site of great historical impoartance is found that there are always dozens of holy rollers that try to twist it more than what it is? (That being an archaeological find.) I find it amazing that we could be so close to something so signifigant and think it wasn't there for 2000 years. Kinda makes me wonder about Atlantis.
Secondsun
Re:How to veiw this (Score:2)
UK researcher: crackpot or for real? (Score:4, Informative)
The case against seems to be that (a) the earliest settlements accepted by most archeologists go back perhaps 6000 or 7000 years, and these are flimsy houses built of wood, reeds, thatch etc - not monolithic dressed stone covering many thousands of acres. Secondly, if these civilisations existed, they would surely have built in OTHER places than right next to shore lines -- where are their ruins on land? In one of the programs he looked at a stone-age Japanese society (one I hadn't heard of previously) - however these are " only " 5000 years ago, and built using wood.
Of course there are plenty of lunatics, new age freaks and other riff-raff -- the "jesus was a spaceman, UFOs built Atlantis" types -- who should of course deserve nothing more than laughter, pity and contempt. (Try to explain the distinction to my girfriend though... *sigh*... a great way to teach oneself patience and forbearance... =)
Re:UK researcher: crackpot or for real? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe these cities were built close to the shore because they were mainly fish-eating people? Another argument goes that cities built inland would have been built by rivers, and that over a few thousand years river action (erosion, silting, etc) would basically cover most of the cities up. Imagine 100 years of the Mississippi getting free reign over the landscape basically - how much would remain afterwards?
And smaller communities would most likely still be built with wood. Maybe a stone temple or something - but you try finding a 4000 year old stone building that is most likely collapsed and buried under mud!
When you look at these things, you have to look at them with an open mind. I.e., never trust any previously held beliefs about the origin of mankind, etc, that modern civilisation has its roots only in the last few thousand years and before that we were ooga-booga cavemen...
The ice age would have made most temperate climates pretty unlivable in, so an ancient civilisations would have been much closer to the equator. We are talking south America thru mexico, cuba, africa (which has undergone a major climate change over the last 3000 years anyway), india, china, etc.
And there appears to be plenty of evidence suggesting older civilisations did develop. Shame is, they built most of their cities it seems under 120ft above sea level. Which would wipe out many major cities today, btw. The sea is an obvious food source, trading mechanism, etc.
The only people currently that are finding these things are people that the "archaelogical community" think of as weirdos. However these people are the only people who are actually willing to look for these places, so what do you expect. Maybe in 50 years time we will have a greater knowledge of mankinds recent origins and they will be accepted as the truth.
And for every honest "nutcase" there will be a dishonest "nutcase" as well - in any field. The existence of one person claiming 20,000 year old civilisations that turns out to not be true does not mean that there were never any 20,000 year old civilisations. However the current oldest claims are about 12,000 years old, in South America.
Other interesting things are that geneticists have worked out that ALL current human beings are descended from around 2,000 humans at a point around 80,000 years ago. Yes, 2,000, separated out into separate clusters around the planet (China, Africa, etc). That is why humanity is not like other animals like dogs for which there are a myriad of different shapes and forms.
Still, I don't think it will ever turn out that Atlantis is buried in deep ice on Antartica and is basically a giant stasis field generator for when the Sun does a 12,000 year pulsar cycle... :) Nor do I think that UFOs built Atlantis or that we are the descendents of an Alien civilisation that landed here so many aeons ago...
A couple of corrections (Score:3, Insightful)
However, others are right to be skeptical of many of the claims
Other interesting things are that geneticists have worked out that ALL current human beings are descended from around 2,000 humans at a point around 80,000 years ago.
Clarification. IIRC all humans are descended from a few thousand humans 80,000
However, everyone outside of Africa is believed to be descended from about 500 people who emigrated more recently. That's right, something like 90-95% of human genetic diversity is in Africa. The rest of us, be we European, Native American, Asian, or whatever, are all much more similar, having only 5-10% of the genetic diversity. I'll leave it as an excercize to the reader as to which group some future humans, having survived some arbitrary change in survival requirements and conditions, is most likely to come from (hint, the math can be done by any 10th grade algebra student).
That is why humanity is not like other animals like dogs for which there are a myriad of different shapes and forms.
First, dogs are not naturally occuring creatures. They were bred for specific characteristics and traits, indeed inbred extensively, which is why there are so many varieties of dogs, some taking very odd form. A better example would have been different wolves, or bears, whose differences exist because of natural selection and not human intervention.
Second, that bottleneck is one possible contributing factor to humankinds homogeneous nature. Other factors which may have been more important were the destruction of the Neanderthal and perhaps other intelligent primates we don't know about (i.e. the ethnic cleansing of a differing kind of primates, leaving homo sap alone to dominate the world), our ability to modify our environment (easing some evolutionary pressures that wolves and bears must endure), and probably numerous other things as well.
Re:UK researcher: crackpot or for real? (Score:2)
The earlier assertions looked pretty tenuous. The new programs covered underwater structures off the coast of India (supposedly remnants of the Indus civilisation, and the origin of the flood stories in the Bhagavad Gita); between India and Sri Lanka; off the southern tip of Japan; and some others.
The case for most of these was pretty much debunked by a geologist he dived with, who said they arent cities at all but natural rock formations. The Indus city had by far the strongest case, as trawling had pulled up artifacts that did appear to be man made (such as a long cylindrical stone with a hole drilled through its centre, presumed to be a bead).
On the whole I wasnt convinced, but you have to give some time to Graham as he at least attempts to find real solid evidence for his claims, and allows contrary opinions into his work.
Graham Hancock... again... (Score:2)
I'm impressed, he may eventually get past crack pot status.
Geology involved (Score:3, Interesting)
For years, archaeologists have thought like this "these people liked to live by rivers, so lets dig around by rivers and see what we find!", when in fact, they should have been thinking like this "these people liked to live by rivers and hung around here about 10,000 yeras ago, lets figure out where the rivers were 10,000 years ago and dig there!".
Sea level has risen significantly since the last ice age. Most population centers in the world are right on the coast, and that hasn't really changed for a long time. Therefore, to find old population centers, one must look where the shoreline USED to be, which is now underwater.
Don't be surprised if you start hearing about more and more of these types of discoveries - none of them are Atlantis.
archaeology is doing well. ..... (Score:2)
Flood in many cultures (Score:2, Informative)
Sure (Score:2, Interesting)
This site [www.ne.jp] although in Japanese, does have some very nice photos of the shore temple that didn't sink. One thing to note is, these monuments were all carved from one stone.
As seen in this photo [www.ne.jp] here this is all ONE rock.
Very impressive.
Not so fast... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, what usually happens is the general scientific community decides that it's actually orthogonal jointing of beachrock - which it turns out is pretty common (Bimini Road, Tasmanian Parking Lot, the referenced story about Cuba, etc.). There was actually a pretty interesting segment on TLC (I think) about this a couple weeks ago.
Sunken pyramids off Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
A similar, fairly recent find is the controversial "pyramids" found off the coast of Japan. There are many web sites about this site, but a pretty decent one can be found at http://www.lauralee.com/japan.htm [lauralee.com]. There is a lot of debate about whether these structures are man-made or natural. Either way, there are some pretty cool pictures:
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan1.htm [lauralee.com]
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan2.htm [lauralee.com]
We have been around for a long time… (Score:2, Insightful)
I know it seems impossible right now, but I wonder if we will be forgotten 10,000 years from now. I bet those who build the pyramids thought they had the universe under their thumbs, just like we do today. Call me pessimistic, but somehow I don't see our civilization as the enduring type.
Maybe a day will come when people worship our telecommunications "gods" as they glide across the sky.
Graham Hancock... (Score:2)
Just because they may have found some ruins in the sea doesn't mean these ancient myths are true.
Alexadria under the sea (Score:2)
Cambay recently found off the coast of Gujurat (Score:3, Interesting)
The article is somewhat sensationalist, but here are the highlights: Wood from the site has been dated between 5500BC and 7500BC. Structures found include stone roads, a bath complex, and acropolis-style raised platforms. Among the artifacts were large numbers of semiprecious stones and beads.
It's a Monty Halls campaign! (Score:2)
Right, and now they're going to find tons of overly powerful items and monsters which are not dangerous considering the characters.
Graham Hancock, racist? (Score:2)
The implications of many of his writings are that the people we *think* built great civilizations aren't capable of being that smart. For example, say the aboriginal Maya peoples of Central America couldn't have build all those great cities and pyramids, let alone figured out all that astronomy, etc.
Instead some other "greater" previous civilization is responsible. Whatever.
In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
When asked how the biggest mountain on earth cound go unreported fo so long the explorer said "Well, we just never noticed it before. It was in New Jersey after all. Nobody pays any attention to Jew Jersey with New York right next door. We plan to explore other overlooked palaces such as Canada as well."
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Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, I think we would see some real evidence for a world engulfing flood that occured only 5,000 years ago. Using the bible's genealogy and stuff, scholars have pinpointed the year of Noah's flood according to the bible. It supposedly was around 2700 BC. Funny that the egyptians and the Sumerians never seemed to notice it!
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:4, Informative)
The Babylons did notice, for there is a legend of Gilgamesh searching for the survivor of the great flood, which eventually turned into the Noah story in Genesis from what I understand of it.
And even if it isn't the origin of the biblical flood, it's still a pretty cool discovery.
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:2, Interesting)
Floods happen. End of story. How is this "proof" of creationism? How does this "disprove" evolution? This discovery does neither.
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:2)
more vindication for my theory that the Flintstones is, in fact, a documentary... They can't hide the truth forever.
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see how quickly the evolutionists try to cover this one up.
Well, scientists have been proven wrong numerous times before, that's the difference between science and pseudo-science, you can't prove pseude-science wrong because they are based on a belive in themselves. (I.e. you can walk through that wall if you stop beliving it's there (and all of scientology's 'technology'))
The evolutionists will simply adapt to new facts (if there is anything that needs adapting, that is)
Science is a process, not a belive.
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:2)
How do you make this leap of logic based on the article? And why we are here, why is it that evolution and religion have to be mutually exclusive? I am a hard core scientist (neurophysiologist), that also happens to believe in God. What is there to say that God cannot work through evolution? To deny evolution exists is to be blind to the world around you.
Think about the following:
Why is it that bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics? Evolution. This is a reality and we have to deal with it daily.
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:2)
Sure, I'd love to but your email address gives me Reason: Illegal host/domain name found and http://hookah.truedork.net:8080/ gives me no reply.
Re:global flood (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see how the finding of this city (or any other city) or that some city was flooded proves there is a god, and He created us.
Re:global flood (Score:2)
A flood at the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 9,000 BC)? I am shocked, shocked to learn that the melting of planet-girdling glaciers could somehow be linked with deluges of water.
Re:Still more evidence for creationism (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not making bold statements about the correctness of evolution. I am merely calling on you to back up your statement.
Reasons? Okay, first of all, evolution says that the Bible is false.
Wrong. Evolution does not mention anything about the bible. It mereely describes how organisms have developed over time. Certain people use the theory of evolution to show the bible is incorrect in some respects. In actuality the Bible and evolution go hand in hand if you go back to the ancient Hebrew interpertations. The word translated to day in most English Bibles actually means period of time in Herbrew.
The Bible says that there was a global flood.
Modern science says there was a global flood. Modern sciecne also says evolution is correct. Your methodology is flawed.
I love how you have attempted to disprove a theory with incredible amounts of evidence with a one sentence corrolation.
Re:Warning ! (Score:2, Funny)
2) Leng is always depicted in the Lovecraftian stories as being on a plateau. (And presented in "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath" as actually being in Earth's Dreamlands).
Although it is an underwater city... I suspect that the aqua-archaeologists couldn't recognize an Elder Sign until it was far too late.
Kierthos
Re:Warning ! (Score:2)
eternal lie,and with strange eons even death may die"
Nation-wide web? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:how did this happen?? (Score:2)
Re:First Numenor Post (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Right (Score:2, Informative)
That'll be one hell of an earthquake if all the land east of the fault ends up in the Atlantic!
How about the land west of the fault ending up in the Pacific?