Lost City from Hindu Puranas.

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Tsunami May Have Revealed Lost City

 

14.02.05 12.00pm

By Jan McGirk

 

 

The mighty Boxing Day tsunami has revealed what archaeologists

believe to be the lost ruins of an ancient city off the coast of

Tamil Nadu in southern India.

 

The 30-metre waves, which reshaped the Bay of Bengal and swept more

than 16,000 Indians to their death, shifted thousands of tonnes of

sand to unearth a pair of elaborately carved stone lions and a

stallion near the famous 7th century Dravidian temple on the coast

at Mahabalipuram, south of Madras.

 

Indian archaeologists believe these granite beasts once guarded a

small port city that may have been submerged since the last Ice Age.

The 2-metre high lion statues, each hewn from a single piece of

granite, appear breathtakingly lifelike. One great stone cat sits up

alert while the other is poised to pounce. Two man-made foundation

walls also remain visible beneath the murky waters, now measurably

shallower.

 

The tsunami also de-silted a large bas-relief stone panel that had

been buried in sand for centuries, close to the shore temple. The

half-completed sculpted elephant was effectively scoured clean by

the great waves and now attracts mobs of visitors who touch its

eroded trunk as a good luck talisman.

 

Scientists from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) are

descending on the World Heritage temple complex of Mahabalipuram to

examine these exquisite relics and to launch an underwater survey.

 

One of the local fishermen who survived the Boxing Day disaster was

catapulted aloft by the tsunami and reportedly clung for hours to

the great arch of the shore temple. He spotted the undersea

structures from this perch and told district authorities seven weeks

ago.

 

Since April 2002, marine archaeologists have been working in tandem

with divers from Delhi and a team from the Scientific Exploration

Society based in Dorset, England, to search for any remnants of this

ancient port.

 

" The sea has thrown up evidence of the grandeur of the Pallava

dynasty, " the head ASI archaeologist, T. Sathiamoorthy, told

reporters last week. " We're all very excited about these finds. "

 

Set among the casuarina trees and palms at Mahabalipuram, these

sprawling temples are among the most venerable in India. Two

centuries ago, sailors referred to Mahabalipuram as the " Seven

Pagodas " .

 

According to Shobita Puja, an Indian historian: " Six other pagodas

and, indeed, an entire city were said to have been consumed by the

waves, leaving the treasures at the bottom of the sea. "

 

Legend has it that this city was so magnificent that jealous gods

unleashed a flood that swallowed it up in a single day.

 

A British travelogue, penned by J. Goldingham, who visited the South

Indian coastal town in 1798, first mentioned these sailors' tales in

writing. But even in Ptolemy's time, the place was considered an

ancient port. One of the Dorset divers, Graham Hancock, was exultant

after initial investigations were completed three years ago.

 

He told the BBC at the time: " 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. "

 

source:http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2 & ObjectID=10010991

 

 

 

Regular Diver contributor Monty Halls hit the headlines recently

when he led a diving expedition to India and found the remains of

what was hailed as " the lost city of Mahabalipuram " - and possibly

one of the earliest manifestations of civilisation. Though

relatively shallow, the diving was far from easy, as he explains

 

 

I STOOD ON A CURVE OF SAND AS THE SHADOW OF AN ANCIENT TEMPLE crept

along the foreshore, following the sunrise on the horizon. Beside me

was my dive gear, in the middle distance a crew of dark-skinned

fishermen readying their craft to take us on a dive that might just

turn local myths into history.

It had taken more than a year of frantic administrative

activity to reach this point. Mahabalipuram, on India's east coast

south of Madras, is an area steeped in folklore as well as religious

and cultural heritage. Fishermen had spoken of temples beneath the

sea, historical records referred to the area as " The Seven Pagodas " ,

yet only this one temple remained on the shore. Were the others

lying beneath the powerful swell that battered this coast?

Every expedition needs a spark to drive it through the dark

logistical days. Ours had come in the form of Graham Hancock, the

international best-selling author and investigative journalist.

A diver himself, Graham had long held that flood myths and

legends of lost cities and civilisations should be taken seriously.

So when the Dorset-based Scientific Exploration Society

approached him to discuss a possible collaborative project, he

quickly identified this area of coastline as rich in possibilities.

Graham had amassed and finally married up scientific data and

local myths to pinpoint Mahabalipuram as the potential location for

accessible submerged ruins. Now he was with us to dive the site and

see whether his theories would stand up.

" Accessible " is a relative term. We had our target area; now we

had to put together an expedition in a region with no diving

infrastructure.

Requests for compressors resulted in furrowed brows,

decompression chambers in stunned silence, and oxygen in a gigantic

rusting cylinder containing what appeared to be industrial O2. The

only boats available were huge, high-sided, wooden trawlers which

rolled wildly in the slightest swell, or smaller tenders powered by

long-shafted diesel outboards, the props of which would spin

sickeningly in mid-air as the local skippers manoeuvred them around

nervous divers.

Fortunately we also had the divers of the Indian National

Institute of Oceanography alongside us in the build-up to the

project, led by the piratical figure of lead diver Sri. His

encyclopaedic knowledge of local tides and conditions was

invaluable, especially when combined with the expertise and diving

skills of Sundaresh and Dr Guar, the NIO's resident diving

archaeologists.

 

archaeological worms

The expedition was to be in two parts, the first an investigation

and survey of a large U-shaped structure 2 miles off the coast of

Poompuhur, more than 100 miles south of Mahabalipuram.

Mentioned in Graham's book Underworld, and in his TV series

Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age, should it be proved to be man-made

its 23m depth would indicate extreme antiquity, and open a can of

archaeological worms about civilisation's origins.

In late March the team assembled on the beach at Poompuhur,

eyeing the approaching skiff nervously as it slewed through the

swell.

The support vessel for this phase, a 54ft local trawler

christened The Death Star by the team, swung and rolled like a wild

animal on its mooring. This would be no diving holiday.

We pounded through the Indian Ocean for 40 minutes and anchored

over the site. Green-gilled divers assembled their gear in the

sweltering heat as the boat lurched drunkenly around them. A glance

over the side revealed a snorting current, and visibility looked

mediocre at best. The answer to the mystery of this structure,

standing proud of an otherwise featureless seabed, would not come

easily.

The first divers down reported an angular structure draped in

fishing nets and monofilament tendrils. For two weeks our divers

crawled over this mysterious mound, measuring, photographing,

filming and chipping. Although only at 23m, visibility was under 5m,

a blizzard of careering suspended particles.

Divers were allocated into strict teams, with a tender and a

supervisor; checks were carried out by both supervisor and divers;

and a standby diver paced the tilting deck, nervously awaiting a

barked order from the deck marshal.

Reassured by this matrix of safety, I fastened my gear with

racing heart and a sense of expectancy. Would I see the font of

civilisation or simply another reef?

My first impression as the object appeared out of the gloom was

of disorientation. Naively, I had expected a view of angular corners

and lines of masonry. What greeted me was a jumble of coral

overgrowth and rounded boulders.

This is the dilemma of true antiquity - should this structure

be as old as Graham believed it to be, some 11,000 years, it would

be buried under coral, worn smooth by vicious currents, and battered

by the years it would have taken to disappear beneath the waves. So

the older it is, the harder it is to tell its origins.

After three weeks and 100 dives of intense surveying by a team

with a wealth of diving experience, the conclusion was that the

structure had been shaped by man.

I even had one sheepish Indian archaeologist sidle up to me one

evening to say that, in his opinion, the structure was definitely

man-made, but that he needed that final definitive piece of proof

before committing himself to the record. The mysterious structure

wasn't a U-shape at all, more of a giant question mark.

 

crackling breakers

On to phase two - the journey up the coast to Mahabalipuram meant

moving lock, stock and two smoking compressors over terrible roads

in baking heat in a knackered lorry. We had given ourselves only

three days to explore the site.

Here the problem was negotiating the great rolling surf that

pounded the foreshore. There were no sleepy inlets or quiet harbours

at Mahabalipuram - the fishermen braced their legs on sturdy wooden

rafts and charged the breakers on the way out to sea, squinting

through streaming foam.

The return journey meant hissing down the faces of crackling

breakers, staying just ahead as the wave tried to grab you with its

white crest. Doing this while sitting on a pile of dive kit,

cradling your camera in one hand and holding on for grim death with

the other, left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry. All diving

should be this way!

Our three boats moored over the first site, a thrilling

combination of darkened water and swirling foam covering a huge

square rock that almost broke the surface. The first two divers

(fittingly an Indian and British buddy pair), vanished beneath the

waves. A signal was passed up the safety line that all was well, and

the rest of the team followed in waves. What we found would resound

around the world.

Immediately apparent on the seabed were great blocks of

masonry, some standing in neat rows, some jumbled in mute testimony

to the power of these waters. The focal point for these blocks

appeared to be great stone monoliths, angular corners still visible,

rising proud of the seabed to the surface 7m above.

Here there would be no furrowed brows or dusting for elusive

archaeological fingerprints. Man was everywhere, in the lines of

huge blocks curving in an elegant wall, in the lip of a large area

of worked stone glimpsed through the sand, an exquisite line

disappearing beneath the substrate leading to who knows what?

Some blocks, protected from wave action by the proximity of

others, were carved so precisely that they could have been laid down

the previous day.

Despite the shallow depth, diving this area was fraught with

difficulties. Not only was the trip out hair-raising, but mooring

presented new dangers. The anchors were primitive wooden hooks, and

dragged quickly through the sand as the boats, weighed down by

divers, fought the muscular swell.

In the water, we had to dance and spin around the structures in

the surge, warily eyeing the razor edges of mussels and barnacles

that caught many a finger and water-softened palm.

 

gigantic sugar cubes

The scale of what we were diving soon became apparent. Divers would

enter the water only to emerge several hundred metres away,

explaining hastily to outraged supervisors that they had remained on

the ruin field throughout their dive, and surfaced with it

stretching into the gloom before them.

More than once I would take several fin-strokes away from a

central structure before turning to take in the entire view, only

then realising that I was looking at right angles and great stone

blocks, huge steps and flat platforms.

The four large central structures were surrounded by a glorious

jumble of blocks and low walls, looking like gigantic sugar cubes

with neat corners and flat surfaces. Each vast block was separated

from the others by hundreds of metres.

Divers would come across random blocks and worked masonry,

indicating smaller structures separate from these main focal points.

Any attempt to identify an overall pattern was futile as time ticked

away, but the lasting impression was one of scale.

While we focused on the central structures, I would speculate

that divers could have dropped in on any point in the surrounding

area and still found evidence of man-made structures. The fishermen

indicated two further reefs considerably further along the shore

(making a total of six - our elusive six temples?).

 

granite shrine

The ancient temples in the area were classically built using

sandstone around a central granite shrine. Could we have been

looking at these central shrines, with the sandstone washed away

long ago?

Such speculation was fuelled by one of the dive teams

discovering an angular entrance in one of the blocks, similar to the

doorways to shrines found on the shore.

Time seemed to accelerate as we dived, each team returning with

eyes popping and further tales of jumbled ruins. We had merely

scratched the surface when our three days were up.

A well-funded expedition is now needed to map the extent of the

ruin field, explore the glorious tangle of masonry on the seabed and

reveal the secrets beneath.

We hope to return and, with the experts from the NIO, start to

untangle some of the mysteries, the biggest of which is the age of

the ruins. Experts in sea-level rise and tectonic activity from

Durham University have speculated that they could be 5-6000 years

old, predating the earliest civilisations and making this site an

area of truly international significance.

My abiding memory on the final day was of a broad smile from

one of our skippers. On seeing my stunned reaction to our find, he

extended a brown arm towards the monstrous swells further out to sea

and said: " Ah, but the really big ruins are out there. " Who knows

what secrets remain off Mahabalipuram?

 

 

 

source: http://www.divernet.com/archaeol/0602india.htm

 

 

" If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and

gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans " . ~James

Herriot "

 

" No man is truly married until he understands every word his wife is

NOT saying. " Author unknown