Cities of the Future From Past

One of the best movies that I ever saw was the "Day after Tomorrow", These were considered to be the most sophisticated and advance civilization on the planet, but as the time past and geography of earth change, thing for these civilizations turned upside down. From the very famous Dwarika and Yonaguni Jima in the East to Port Royal, and Mulifanua Site in the west, lets look at some of these early (advanced) civilizations on the planet that got completely submerged under water and their existance was completely hidden untill they were rediscoveded a few decades back.

Dwarka, India

When underwater settlements are concerned within Indian marine archaeology, the most talked about would be the ancient city of Dwarka. As the legend goes, Krishna, the most powerful personality in Mahabharat, is said to have founded the city, in a place with the same name at the Devbhoomi Dwarka district in Gujarat’s west coast. Dwarka is one of the best-studied underwater sites in India. One of the holiest places for Hindus and 1 of the Char Dhams and dedicated to Lord Krishna. Until quite recently the ancient city of Dwarka – thought to be a kingdom built by Lord Krishna, home to 7,00,000 palaces made of gold, silver and precious stones – was just a stuff of myth, when in 2000 India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology discovered ruins 131 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Khambhat. Since then, an array of ancient artifacts have been unearthed including pottery, sculpture, evidence of structures and human bones with carbon dating tests revealing the underwater city could date back as far as 9,500 years ago – predating all archeological sites found before it.

Yonaguni Monument, Japan

The sea off Yonaguni is a popular diving location during the winter months because of its large population of hammerhead sharks. In 1986, while looking for a good place to observe the sharks, Kihachiro Aratake, a director of the Yonaguni-Cho Tourism Association, noticed some singular seabed formations resembling architectural structures. Shortly thereafter, a group of scientists directed by Masaaki Kimura of the University of the Ryūkyūs visited the formations and claimed it was infact a sunken city. The Yonaguni Monument has a pyramid - shaped structure rising around 90 feet from the seabed featuring stair - like terraces – is quite possibly the most controversial submerged ‘city’ – in fact, there’s still no consensus on whether the structure is indeed evidence of an ancient manmade civilization or the result of natural tectonic activity. British alternative history writer and supporter of the manmade theory Graham Hancock wrote about Yonaguni Monument in his book Heaven’s Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization, and fellow advocate Masaaki Kimura – a marine seismologist and professor at the University of the Ryukyus – believes that the structure could have been around 10000 years old but further strudies by him revealed that the structure was built around 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. Currently, the site can be explored by diving or boat trip.

Villa Epecuén, Argentina

Villa Epecuén was a popular Argentinian tourist village nestled on the edges of Laguna Epecuén, that is until heavy rain during the mid-1980s caused the lake to overflow consuming the once thriving town. Technically no longer totally underwater, since 2009 the floodwaters have receded exposing a haunting landscape of half-submerged houses, trees and roads but it’s one of the world’s few underwater cities that visitors don’t need scuba diving skills to explore. One former resident, 85-year-old Pablo Novak, decided to return to Villa Epecuén when the waters receded: he is the subject of Australian filmmaker Matthew Salleh’s 2013 documentary, Pablo’s Villa. Tourism was developed by an Englishman after taking the land on lease. He marketed the lake as having healing properties, hiring Italian scientists to bolster the claim. At its height, Villa Epecuén could accommodate at least 5,000 visitors.

Port Royal, Jamaica

Port Royal is a village located at the end of the Palisadoes at the mouth of Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1494 by the Spanish, it was once the largest city in the Caribbean, functioning as the centre of shipping and commerce in the Caribbean Sea by the latter half of the 17th century. Legend has it that Port Royal – formerly a haven for swashbuckling pirates – was once nicknamed ‘the wickedest city in the west’, though a devastating earthquake in 1692 resulted in the loss of around two thirds of the original, old city. Today, the submerged portion of Port Royal is an archaeological treasure trove and a total of eight buildings in varying stages of preservation have been uncovered alongside what UNESCO World Heritage Conservation has described as ‘an unrivaled collection of in situ artifacts’. Though currently off limits to recreational divers, a number of recovered artefacts can be seen at the National Museum Jamaica in Kingston.

Lion City, China

Submerged in the lake, at the foot of Wu Shi Mountain ("Five Lion Mountain"), lies an ancient city known as Shi Cheng ("Lion City"). It was built during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25–200) and was first set up as a county in AD 208 Submerged in 1959 when the manmade reservoir Qiandao Lake was created to provide hydroelectric power for the nearby, fast-growing city of Hangzhou, China’s Lion City (or Shi Cheng) was founded almost 1,400 years ago and not ‘rediscovered’ until 2001. The subaquatic city, around 85-131 feet below the surface, is home to some astoundingly well preserved examples of Ming and Qing Dynasty architecture including pagodas, temples and countless archways featuring intricately carved dragons, lions and phoenixes, while Qiandao Lake is home to another submerged city – He Cheng – thought to date back even further. Due to the depth, temperature and visibility of Lion City’s location, only experienced divers are permitted to visit the ancient underwater city.

Heracleion, Egypt

Located off the coast of the Egyptian town of Abu-Qir just northwest of Alexandria, lies the sunken city of Heracleion, also known by its Egyptian name Thonis. Discovered in 2000, thirty feet under the sea, excavations of the ancient site – formerly the main trading point of the Mediterranean during its heyday in the 6th century BC – have unearthed artifacts including giant statues, pottery, jewelry, wrecked ships and coins dating back to the Ptolemaic dynasty. Its legendary beginnings go back to as early as the 12th century BC, and it is mentioned by ancient Greek historians. Its importance grew particularly during the waning days of the Pharaohs. Currently there are plans in the works to construct an underwater museum that would not only allow visitors to see Heracleion’s sunken treasures up close, but also protect the ancient city from pollution and poaching.

Pavlopetri, Greece

Discovered in 1967 by Nicholas Flemming and mapped in 1968 by a team of archaeologists from Cambridge, Pavlopetri is located between the Pavlopetri islet across the Elafonisos village and the Pounta coast. Heracleion isn’t the only hidden treasure the waters of the Mediterranean Sea are home to: over in Greece, on a strait separating the southern coast of Laconia and the small island of Elafonisos, are the undersea ruins of the city of Pavlopetri. Originally thought to date to the Mycenaean era (1600-1100 BC), archeologists now believe the former port dates could date back as far as 5,000 years and in 2009 an international team of experts using underwater robotics and sonar mapping conducted a survey of the area, allowing them to build a three dimensional image of what Pavlopetri may have looked like at its zenith.

Phanagoria, Greece

Phanagoria was founded ca. 543 BC by the Teian colonists who had to flee Asia Minor in consequence of their conflict with Cyrus the Great. Before the underwater city was discovered, the notion of Phanagoria as a city was just another story in mythology. Fiction became real when archaeologists unearthed a gravestone of the legendary Hypsikrates, the wife of Mithradates VI. This underwater city now lies under the waters of the Black Sea, but long ago it was the largest Greek city. Further explorations were made and divers saw marble plinths, artifacts, and that amazing tombstone. The underwater city of Phanagoria is technically on Russian soil now.

Baiae, Italy

An old Roman playground for the rich and famous, Baiae, Italy was a formerly flourishing spa town known for its hedonistic ways until it was ransacked during the 8th century by Saracens and eventually deserted by 1500 before floodwaters later swallowed up the town. Today overseen by Parco Archeologico Sommerso di Baia, divers can explore the extensive site visiting historic, sunken locales like the Pisonian Villa, formerly owned by the aristocratic Piso family who plotted to overthrow Emperor Nero, and the Sunken Nymphaeum – the former site of Emperor Claudius’ nymphaeum home to several ancient marble statues. The site had occasionally revealed Roman sculptures. The Aphrodite of Baiae, a variant of the Venus de Medici, was supposedly excavated there sometime before 1803, when the English antiquary Thomas Hope began displaying it in his gallery on Duchess Street in London

Atlit-Yam, Israel

At around 8,900-8,300 years old, Atlit-Yam in Israel – a complex underwater site stretching 40,000-square meters showing evidence of a society living on a mix of crop cultivation, fishing, livestock farming and hunting – is the earliest known agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast. Surveys of the site, located about 1,300 offshore from the Israeli village of Atlit, just south of Haifa, have so far revealed architectural findings including stone water wells, walls and a megalithic monument alongside 65 human skeletons – two of which, those of a woman and infant excavated in 2008, showed evidence of having suffered from tuberculosis also making Atlit-Yam the locale of the earliest known case of the disease.

Mulifanua Site, Samoa

When archaeologists came upon thousands of pieces of pottery spread over the seabed off the Samoan coast, they knew that these belonged to some form of civilization. Research of the area and its history led to the Lapita. They were a group of settlers that originated in Eastern Asia and traveled to Micronesia and Polynesia in 1,500 BC. These people flourished in the Pacific Islands for years and were known to be very skilled at pottery. The island of Upolu believed to have been inhabited by the Lapita people, and these pottery shards were theirs. Archaeologists speculate that rising tides may have sunk some settlements in the area, along with these pottery artifacts.

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