Tsunami may have revealed lost city
Indian fishermen stand on the coast of Tamil Nadu in southern India.
File picture / Reuters
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."
- THE INDEPENDENT
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| User: "The CO" |
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| Title: Re: Tsunami may have revealed lost city |
17 Feb 2005 09:29:08 AM |
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<itwill@happen.com> wrote in message
news:1108395683.63990821578199b546087dc330986193@teranews...
Indian archaeologists believe these granite beasts once guarded a
small port city that may have been submerged since the last Ice Age.
Seems unlikely to be that old
The rise in sea levels from the melting of the ice age cover was pretty much
around the
12,000-10,000 BCE mark, which would make the city well over 10,000 years old
We are taking Paleolithic era here, even Neolithic seems unlikely for the
construction
of a stone city with such carvings, that is the hallmark of a stable and
developed civilisation
that can afford to have people spending large resources (by their standards)
carving stone
animals instead of hunting - unlikely - remember that this would predate
agriculture by a
significant amount - domestication of animals didn't start til well into the
Neolithic
This sounds like something more likely dating to the Bronze Age era, say
5,000-4,000 BCE
Only my (amateur) 2c worth
The CO
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