Underwater Bridge
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For centuries, local fishermen on the coast of Mahabalipuram
in India have believed that a great flood consumed a city
over 10,000 years ago in a single day. This story was
recorded n by British explorer J. Goldingham, who visited the
area
in 1798. The legend said there were six temples submerged
beneath the water, with the seventh temple still standing on
the shore. Now author Graham Hancock thinks he's found
them.
?I have long regarded Mahabalipuram, because of its flood
myths and fishermen?s sightings as a very likely place in
which discoveries of underwater structures could be made,
and I proposed that a diving expedition should be
undertaken there,? says Hancock.
In April, he made a diving expedition to the area, working
with the U.K. Scientific Exploration Society and India?s
National Institute of Oceanography. The SES says, ?A joint
expedition of 25 divers from the Scientific Exploration
Society and India?s National Institute of Oceanography led
by Monty Halls and accompanied by Graham Hancock, have
discovered an extensive area with a series of structures that
clearly show man made attributes, at a depth of (16-23 feet)
offshore of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu. The scale of the
submerged ruins, covering several square miles and at
distances of up to a mile from shore, ranks this as a major
marine-archaeological discovery as spectacular as the ruined
cities submerged off Alexandria in Egypt.?
The NIO says, ?A team of underwater archaeologists from
National Institute of Oceanography NIO have successfully
unearthed evidence of submerged structures off
Mahabalipuram and established first-ever proof of the
popular belief that the Shore temple of Mahabalipuram is the
remnant of series of total seven of such temples built that
have been submerged in succession. The discovery was
made during a joint underwater exploration with the
Scientific Exploration Society, U.K.?
These investigations reveal stone masonry, remains of walls,
scattered square and rectangular stone blocks, and a large
platform with steps leading up to it. Most of the structures
are badly damaged and scattered in a vast area, with
barnacles and mussels growing on them. There are two
locations, and the construction design and area is about the
same at each. One possible date for the ruins may be 1500-
1200 BC. The Pallava dynasty, which ruled the area during
this time, constructed many similar temples.
Durham University geologist Glenn Milne thinks the
underwater construction was built closer to 4,000 BC. He
says, ??It is probably reasonable to assume that there has
been very little vertical tectonic motion in this region during
the past five thousand years or so. Therefore, the dominant
process driving sea-level change will have been due to the
melting of the Late Pleistocene ice sheets. Looking at
predictions from a computer model of this process suggests
that the area where the structures exist would have been
submerged around six thousand years ago. Of course, there
is some uncertainty in the model predictions and so there is
a flexibility of roughly plus or minus one thousand years is
this date.?
Archeologists believe there was no culture in India 6,000
years ago capable of building anything that grand. Could
such a culture have been lost during the Great Flood, which
is legendary in many different cultures, all over the world.
Hancock says, ?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.
?Between 17,000 years ago and 7000 years ago, at the end
of the last Ice Age, terrible things happened to the world our
ancestors lived in,? Hancock says. ?Great ice caps over
northern Europe and north America melted down, huge
floods ripped across the earth, sea-level rose by more than
(325 feet), and about (15 million square miles) of formerly
habitable lands were swallowed up by the waves.?
Hancock says, ?Of course the real discoverers of this amazing
and very extensive submerged site are the local fishermen of
Mahabalipuram. My role was simply to take what they had to
say seriously and to take the town?s powerful and distinctive
flood myths seriously.? To learn more about Graham
Hancock?s explorations,
click here.
Besides deep diving explorations, ancient submerged
structures have also been discovered from space. Space
NASA satellite images have revealed a mysterious ancient
bridge in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. The
bridge has been named Adam?s Bridge and was created from
a chain of shoals, about 18 miles long. It?s unique curvature
reveals that it?s manmade.
Archeological studies reveal that the first human inhabitants
of Sri Lanka came to the island around 1,750,000 years ago
and the bridge is about the same age. This is in line with a
legend called Ramayana, which dates from more than
1,700,000 years ago. In this epic, a bridge was built
between Rameshwaram (India) and the coast of Sri Lanka
under the supervision of the god-like Rama.
Two authors and explorers give convincing proof that
prehistoric man sailed around the world in ?How the Sun God
Reached America,?
click
here.
To learn more,
click
here. To see images of the ancient land bridge,
click
here.
