Underwater Remains Of 9,500-Year-Old City
By James Donahue
Marine researchers studying satellite images have discovered the ancient remains of a five-mile-wide city hidden in 120 feet of water in the Gulf of Cambay just off the western coast of India. It is such a new discovery . . . made in 2002 . . . that historians and archaeologists are still reeling over the implications.
The research as to just what kind of buildings are located there, how advanced the civilization was that built such a city, and just who these people were has only just begun.
One thing is known already. Since the carbon dating of human bones, teeth, pottery and wood pieces recovered from the site date back to the end of the last ice age, its existence predates all other known great civilizations by at least 5,000 years. It is theorized that the city was flooded by the melting ice as the world warmed.
While sonar images have been taken and Indian officials have allowed dredging to bring objects to the surface, we do not know if divers have visited the site as of yet. What is known is that there are square and rectangular structures in an area along what appears to be an ancient river bed. The city measured about five miles wide along that river, and two miles wide.
Not only this, but the satellite images show the possible existence of hundreds of other urban sites located all along that ancient river bed that once flowed from the Himalayan Mountains down to the Arabian Sea.
Historians have long known about early Vedic literature called the Rg Veda, which told about a mighty river known as the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayans and into the sea. But such a river does now exist in India today so they thought the story in the Rg Veda was not describing a river that existed in that part of the world. Now they are examining that ancient story with a more careful eye.
Author and cultural researcher Graham Hancock noted that “cities on this scare are now known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities began to appear in Mesopotamia . . . There’s a huge chronological problem in this 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.”
Naturally the archaeological world has produced a battery of skeptics. Justin Morris of the British Museum said he believes a lot more work needs to be done before the site can be said to belong to civilization that existed 9,500 years ago.
By James Donahue
Marine researchers studying satellite images have discovered the ancient remains of a five-mile-wide city hidden in 120 feet of water in the Gulf of Cambay just off the western coast of India. It is such a new discovery . . . made in 2002 . . . that historians and archaeologists are still reeling over the implications.
The research as to just what kind of buildings are located there, how advanced the civilization was that built such a city, and just who these people were has only just begun.
One thing is known already. Since the carbon dating of human bones, teeth, pottery and wood pieces recovered from the site date back to the end of the last ice age, its existence predates all other known great civilizations by at least 5,000 years. It is theorized that the city was flooded by the melting ice as the world warmed.
While sonar images have been taken and Indian officials have allowed dredging to bring objects to the surface, we do not know if divers have visited the site as of yet. What is known is that there are square and rectangular structures in an area along what appears to be an ancient river bed. The city measured about five miles wide along that river, and two miles wide.
Not only this, but the satellite images show the possible existence of hundreds of other urban sites located all along that ancient river bed that once flowed from the Himalayan Mountains down to the Arabian Sea.
Historians have long known about early Vedic literature called the Rg Veda, which told about a mighty river known as the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayans and into the sea. But such a river does now exist in India today so they thought the story in the Rg Veda was not describing a river that existed in that part of the world. Now they are examining that ancient story with a more careful eye.
Author and cultural researcher Graham Hancock noted that “cities on this scare are now known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities began to appear in Mesopotamia . . . There’s a huge chronological problem in this 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.”
Naturally the archaeological world has produced a battery of skeptics. Justin Morris of the British Museum said he believes a lot more work needs to be done before the site can be said to belong to civilization that existed 9,500 years ago.