Explorers believe they have discovered remains of another
city submerged off the coast of India. In January scientists
announced the discovery of an ancient city 120 feet under
the sea in the Gulf of Khambhat in northwest India, which
could be one of the oldest cities known. Fragments of
pottery, carved wood, bone and beads from there have been
dated to more than 9,000 years old.
Now an expedition from the Scientific Exploration Society
and India?s National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has
discovered ruins off the coast of Mamallapuram in Tamil
Nadu at depths of 16 to 23 feet. According to ancient
legends, this newly-discovered city was swallowed up by the
sea about 2,000 years ago. Legends say there was once a
great city containing seven temples that was so beautiful
that jealous gods sent a flood to engulf it.
Author Graham Hancock joined the expedition. He has been
studying underwater cities for 10 years and believes this new
discovery supports his theory that complex civilizations
existed in the Ice Age but were wiped out when the ice
melted, submerging 15 million square miles of land. He?s
convinced the city is the same as the one referred to in the
legend.
A spokeswoman for the Scientific Exploration Society
says, ?Southern India has a big tradition of myth that large
areas were inundated by the sea. It?s difficult to tell how old
the site is. The NIO has said it is 1,500 to 2,000 years old.
The ruins include walls, steps and stone blocks. The
structures have been severely damaged over the years but
are clearly man-made.?
To see photo of the underwater city,
click here.
To see news story about the underwater city discovered in
northwest India, ?Another Submerged City?,
click
here.
Tim Cornwell of The Scotsman newspaper reports that close
to the bottom of an
excavation almost 100 feet deep, archaeologists exploring a
villa buried by the
eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD have found two huge doors of
carbonized wood.
Scholars say that behind these doors could be a lost treasure
trove of Roman scrolls, part of the famous lost library of the
Villa of the Papyri. However, this unique chance to recover
great classical masterpieces, lost to humanity for 2,000
years, could fail if there?s more flooding or a new eruption of
the Vesuvius volcano. The leading classics scholars in Britain
and the United States are pleading for urgent action before it
is too late. Vesuvius last erupted in 1944, but with
earthquakes in Naples in 1980, the risk of further eruptions
is considered high.
The Villa of the Papyri is described as one of the greatest
Roman villas discovered in the world. It was a centerpiece of
the ancient city of Herculaneum, which was a luxury seaside
resort for the nearby city of Pompeii. In 79 AD, the volcanic
eruption that buried Pompeii bought terror and death to
Herculaneum as well. A blast of gas at almost 700 degrees
Fahrenheit swept through the city. It turned bread sitting on
tables to carbon, as well as buildings and people, and did the
same thing to the villa?s precious books.
Herculaneum was buried under 65 feet of volcanic mud,
which hardened to the
consistency of soft rock, and was capped by the lava from
later eruptions.
The villa was first discovered by well-diggers in the Bay of
Naples more than 200 years ago. Early excavations dating
back to the 1790s, much of it funded by George IV turned
up what were first thought to be sticks of charcoal. On closer
inspection, they turned out to be scrolls that had been
turned to charcoal in the blast of the volcano?s heat.
Eventually they were partly unrolled. The heat that had
seemed to destroy them had actually
preserved them.
The work of picking out the charred ink of Latin and Greek
began with early magnifying glasses. It picked up in the
1990s with multi-spectral imaging technology, first
developed by NASA to study minerals on the surfaces of
other planets. Scientists at Brigham Young University in
Utah, working with staff at the National Library in Naples,
have continued to decipher writings from more than 10,000
fragments, painstakingly unrolling and reading the scrolls.
Most have turned out to be works of Greek philosophy,
including writings of Epicurus that had been missing for
more than 2,000 years. But it is what lies hidden that is
tantalizing to scholars. Early digs discovered only one level of
the villa, but later excavations have shown there are at least
four more levels.
?They have discovered these huge doors on the second
level,? says Francesca Auricchio, the archaeologist leading
the dig. ?They have small round windows, closed by glass,
which was very precious. This means it was a very important
part of the house.?
Investigation of a small area behind the doors suggests the
rooms there are rich in paintings, statues, and mosaics,
Auricchio says. But far more compelling is the possibility of
finding copies of Virgil?s Aeneid, missing volumes of Livy?s
History of Rome, or lost works by Sophocles or even
Aristotle. The Villa of the Papyri has already yielded nearly
2,000 scrolls, but most of the only intact Roman library left
in the world may lie
undiscovered.
?People are very concerned to save this thing,? says Richard
Janko, professor of Greek at University College, London. He?s
one of eight scholars who signed a letter pleading for
the ?vital excavations? at the villa to go ahead.
?Flooding now poses a grave danger to the building and its
contents,? the letter warns. ?The excavation must be
completed, and the building preserved. Most importantly the
books must be brought to light.?
Many of the original scrolls turned up in boxes, with some
scattered across the villa?s garden. This means the
inhabitants of the house may have made a desperate
attempt to save some of the precious library as the volcano
exploded?or scrolls could have been routinely moved from a
storage area to a reading room.
Professor Janko says, ?The reason we feel this site is special,
is that it is the only place in the ancient world where we
know that a library was buried in conditions that preserved
it. We have lots of ancient buildings, but a limited number of
ancient works of literature, and this is the place we are most
likely to find them.?
To learn how the inhabitants of these cities may have coped
with disaster, read ?Catastrophobia? by Barbara Hand Clow,
click here.
For more information, click here.
