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Sunken City Found Off Of India
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.
From where we sit in modern times, ancient myths and legends are often considered little more than fairy tales. But given what we know about the effects of natural catastrophes - namely their ability to eradicate all traces of any civilization that once stood in their path - there is probably much that is buried, inundated or otherwise obscured from view.
One interesting question that is perhaps particularly revealing is, why are are so surprised whenever we find this stuff?
Actually, this city has sunk because the sea levels have risen since the last ice age. U see, during the last ice age, much of the ocean's water was locked up in ice. Sea level was about 300 feet lower than it is today. As the ice melted over several millenia, sea levels rose to their present levels.
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!
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I've never understood why academia seem so intent
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.
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
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
They have discovered what they think to be the site of the great flood, around 5500BCE around the Black Sea. The idea is that it was a large, freshwater lake before then judging from the shellfish they've dug up in core samples. After the 5500BCE layer they find only saltwater shellfish. The earth wall at istanbul collapsed and the sea rushed in, doubling the size of the Black Sea.
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.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
The ancient town of Mehrgarh has been excavated in the Baluchistan area. It is part of the Indus-Saraswati civilization, and dates back to 6500 BC. Spread over 168 acres, it had a population of 30,000. The earliest Sumerian settlements date to 4000 BC. Lots of sources for information on the web. One sample.
I Think that thats too long a time sacle for humans. Weve been "human" for the past, call it 500,000 years give or take, which is nothing in goelogical, continental drift terms. THe continents probably moved a mile or two in that time.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
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... =)
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Human settlement may be more widely spread than previously thought, but recent world events lead me to believe that civilization is probably not possible.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
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. 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
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan2.htm
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This city is part of the Indus valley civilisation. Most scholars believe the Indus language and culture were Dravidian, that is pre-Aryan and (probably) pre anything like Hinduism.
Hancock disagrees, but then, as you say, he's not the most reliable source of evidence.
Why does everyone say 'the end of the last ice age'? We are still in the middle of an ice age that just happens to be in a slight recession. Just because half of the US isn't covered in ice doesn't mean it's not an ice age. In fact, we are about 1.6 million years into this ice age. Periods like the one that we are in right now (where it is warmer there's not so much ice everywhere except at the poles and on mountains) tend to last about 10-15,000 years. I guess that means we're due for some more ice pretty soon.
If you don't believe, go pick up the nearest geology book and have a good read.
What?
It is little wonder that both the Bible and Epic of Gilgamesh have many common themes. Much of the Bible was written by people who had lived in Summaria, then left, perhaps because they felt that civillization was wrong. There are many themes that are repeated in both Gilgamesh and the Bible.
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.
Rhapsody in Numbers
There was a set of links that showed up with this post including one regarding a French study. The author concluded that there actuall are several drowned islands, just west of Gibraltar, that were submerged about 11,000 years ago. Sea level at the height of the Pleistocene was about 400 feet (120 meters) below its present level. So, in fact there is a substantial piece of real estate now underwater that once was dry land when you consider the planet as a whole. The French author plans to dive on these "islands" this summer. It is worth noting - to us archaeologists any way - that this is the second drowned city found off India. Another was found last year in 120 feet of water off southwest India - the other side of the subcontinent from the latest find. My colleagues are unconfortable with the radiocarbon dates from this site, which reportedly run about 9,000 years old. This would tack a good 5,000 years onto the archaeology of civilizations, as opposed to less complexly organized societies.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
> 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 . 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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade