Lost city found off Indian coast Part-1

INDIA: LOST CITIES FOUND

COMPILED BY SASKIA PRAAMSMA

THE SUPERIOR CULTURE and religious leanings of the peoples of India date from the early times of Dravidiandomination and are due, in part, to the fact that so many of the Sethite priesthood entered India, both in the earlierAndite and in the later Aryan invasions. The thread of monotheism running through the religious history of Indiathus stems from the teachings of the Adamites in the second garden.As early as 16,000 B.C. a company of one hundred Sethite priests entered India and very nearly achieved the religiousconquest of the western half of that polyglot people. But their religion did not persist. Within five thousand years their doctrines of the Paradise Trinity had degenerated into the triune symbol of the fire god. But for more than seven thousand years, down to the end of the Andite migrations, the religious status of the inhabitants of India was far above that of the world at large. During these times India bid fair to produce the leading cultural, religious, philosophic, and commercial civilization of the world. And but for the complete submergence of the Andites by the peoples of the south, this destiny would probably have been realized.

The Dravidian centers of culture were located in the river valleys, principally of the Indus and Ganges, and in the Deccan along the three great rivers flowing through the Eastern Ghats to the sea. The settlements along the seacoast of the Western Ghats owed their prominence to maritime relationships with Sumeria. The Dravidians were among the earliest peoples to build cities and to engage in an extensive export and import business, both by land and sea. By 7000 B.C. camel trains were making regular trips to distant Mesopotamia; Dravidian shipping was pushing coast wise across the Arabian Sea to the Sumerian cities of the Persian Gulf and was venturing on the waters of the Bay of Bengal as far as the East Indies. An alphabet, together with the art of writing, was imported from Sumeria by these seafarers and merchants.. (UB 881)

 

BBC NEWS, JANUARY 19, 2002: The remains of what hasbeen described as a huge lost city may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history. Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old. The vast city—which is five miles long and two miles wide—is believed to predate the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years. The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology conducting a survey of pollution. Using sidescan sonar—which sends a beam of sound waves down to the bottom of the ocean—they identified huge
geometrical structures at a depth of 120ft. Debris recovered from the site—including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth—has been carbon
dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old. The city is believed to be even older than the ancient Harappan civilisation, which dates back around 4,000 years. Marine archaeologists have used a
technique known as sub-bottom profiling to show that the buildings’ remains stand on enormous foundations. Author and film-maker Graham Hancock, who has written extensively on the uncovering of ancient civilizations, told BBC News Online that the evidence was compelling: “The [oceanographers] found that they were dealing with two large blocks of apparently manmade structures.” Cities on this scale are not known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500
years ago when the first big cities began to appear in Mesopotamia. “Nothing else on the scale of the underwater cities of Cambay is known. The first cities of the historical period are as far away from these cities as we are today from the pyramids of Egypt,” he said. This, Mr. Hancock told BBC News Online, could have massive repercussions for our view of the ancient world. “There’s a huge chronological problem in this

 

 

 

 

 A view of the city believed to predate the 4,000-year-old Harappan civilization

 

discovery. It means that the whole model of the origins of civilization with which archaeologists have been working will have to be remade from scratch,” he said. However, archaeologist Justin Morris from the British Museum said more work would need to be undertaken before the site could be categorically said to belong to a 9,000-year-old civilization. “Culturally speaking, in that part of the world there were no civilizations prior to about 2,500 BC. What happened before then mainly consisted of small, village settlements,” he told BBC News Online. Dr Morris added that artifacts from the site would need to be very carefully analyzed, and pointed out that the C14 carbon dating process is not without its error margins. It is believed that the area was submerged as ice caps melted at the end of the last ice age 9-10,000 years ago. Although the first signs of a significant find came eight months ago, exploring the area has been extremely difficult because the remains lie in highly
treacherous waters, with strong currents and rip tides. The Indian Minister for Human Resources and ocean development said a group had been formed to oversee further studies in the area. “We have to find out what happened then ... where and how this  civilization vanished" he said.

Indian Harappa Gateway

BBC NEWS, APRIL 1, 2002: An ancient underwater city has been discovered off the coast of southeastern 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. 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. The myths of Mahabalipuram were first set down in writing by British traveler 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.

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