Underwater Discoveries – News Archive 1999

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Over the past decade or so there have been numerous discoveries about the ancient world, many of which cannot be explained by the traditional views of prehistory as interpreted by mainstream archæologists. It would be impossible to keep abreast of them all, but many have major implications for our greater understanding of the cataclysmic events of antiquity which are remembered in the stories of Atlantis, the Deucalian flood, and the flood of Noah that have been passed down from generation to generation in both oral and written traditions since time immemorial

Of course, there are so many ancient tales of flooded kingdoms, cataclysmic inundations and sunken lands from more or less every corner of the world, that it is difficult to avoid the basic question of whether or not they all refer to the same cataclysm, or a series of cataclysms that happened over several millennia from around 15,000 BC to around 1,500 BC? Many scientists now believe that there were a series of rapid sea-level changes which marked the abrupt end of the last Ice Age, especially at the time of Plato’s original date of 9,600 BC where he placed the supposed destruction of Atlantis.

The melting ice-sheets, it is believed by ‘uniformitarians’, were sufficient to account for these sea-level rises, but other scientists are looking at the possibility that supermassive quantities of water-ice were rudely delivered to the Earth by a giant comet which passed close to the Earth and the Moon at the end of the Pleistocene era – again at around 11,500 years ago. This ‘event’ was coeval with the world’s major mountain ranges – such as the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas – attaining their present elevations, whilst many of the world’s low-lying basin areas collapsed in an abrupt series of crustal deformations caused by the gravitational effects of a celestial body in such close proximity to Earth.

Many of the world’s ‘deluge traditions’ refer to a celestial agency as having been the cause of the global floods, as well as the major rifting of Earth’s crust in numerous locations, and possibly also causing a tilt in the Earth’s rotational axis which brought about the seasons and the frigid polar regions as we now know them. The mass extinctions which marked the end of the Pleistocene and the start of the present Holocene era are also dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, as are the unconsolidated jumbles of now extinct land animals, marine lifeforms, and Pleistocene flora which comprise the many types of ‘drift deposits’ found jammed with extreme force into caves and rock fissures worldwide.

Many species from widely differing climatic zones and habitats lie side-by-side in bits and pieces evidencing the violent nature of their common demise, and careful analysis of these suggest the cause as being not the Ice Age of the uniformitarians, but the tumultuous swirling waters of mega-tsunami. Either way, the major question which cannot any longer be reasonably avoided by serious prehistorical researchers must be:

“What more evidence of ancient civilisations, and of the sea-faring peoples of world-wide

mythology, remains to be discovered beneath the waves on the

continental shelves all around our planet?”

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“Seahenge gives up its secrets”

July 80, 1999, BBC Science News, UK: “A circle of waterlogged wooden posts found on a remote beach in Norfolk, England, is transforming our knowledge of Bronze Age culture 4,000 years ago.

The 55 posts, together with the up-turned stump of an oak tree in the middle, were first spotted on the beach at Holme, near Hunstanton, last November. They had become exposed after the peat dune covering them was swept away by winter storms.

Norfolk County Council’s Archaeological Unit identified the find as a Bronze Age timber circle dating from around 2000 BC – roughly contemporary with Stonehenge. Inevitably, the circle was dubbed Seahenge.”

[Full Story]

 

Atlantis in the East China Sea at Yonaguni?

An image/link to the Morien Institute Yonaguni page

Dr. Robert M. Schoch

The southern-most Japanese island of Yonaguni is located near the island of Taiwan, off the coast of mainland China. Around 13 years ago a diver fishing for sharks discovered an enormous structure underwater off the coast of Yonaguni island, and it has been examined over the past 12 years by scholars from many universities, as well as interested others.

In October 2002 the Morien Institute did an interview with Professor Masaaki Kimura, who has dived over 100 times on the sites.

Dr. Robert M. Schoch a professor of geology at Boston University, USA, has also dived down to the monument several times, and has kindly made many of his photographs of this enigmatic structure available to the Morien Institute. Click on the image of the island above to read Dr Schoch’s 1999 report.

Various experts in the fields of archæology and geology agree that if the structure is man-made, then it was done so at least 12,500 years ago, when some scoentists believe the structure was last above sea-level, making it potentially the most important of all archæological discoveries of the last century. The notoriously shallow waters of the seas between China, south-east Asia and Australia, which includes the many hundreds of islands in the Indonesian chain, have not been fully explored by marine archæologists, yet the whole area known as the Sunda Shelf, or Sundaland, was a vast continent larger than India during the Pleistocene Age, at the abrupt end of which the sea-levels rose several hundred feet.

If this structure off the coast of Yonaguni Island is anything to go by, future expeditions to the area look certain to reveal the existence of widespread settlement before the great

sea-level rises that marked the end of the Pleistocene era.

Many scientists believe that there were a series of abrupt glacial-meltwater outpourings which ended an Ice Age that began thawing some 12,000 to 17,000 years ago. But other scientists believe that tremendous quantites of water was delivered to the Earth by the impact, or close encounter, with a large comet composed of water and other ices

 

“Two ancient Phoenician ships found”

June 29, 1999, IOL/The Mercury, South Africa: “Two Phoenician ships that met their end more than 2 500 years ago during a fierce storm off the coast of what is now Israel have been discovered by American underwater explorer Robert Ballard, using similar techniques to those he used in finding the Titanic in 1985.

The two ships, measuring 18m and 15m, are almost perfectly preserved and are lying in an upright position about 50km off the coast at a depth of 450m.

The ships’ contents indicate they had sailed from the port of Tyre (now a city in Lebanon) around 750 BC, each carrying a crew of about six and a cargo of amphorae – large ceramic containers filled with wine.”

[Full Story]

 

“Seahenge removal on again”

June 29, 1999, BBC Science News, UK: “Attempts to move a Bronze Age monument are due to resume on Tuesday following a deal between archaeologists and protesters.

The circle of wooden posts – known as Seahenge – was found under a beach in north Norfolk and is thought to be more than 4,000 years old. The structure consists of the upturned foot of an oak tree surrounded by an oval of 55 oak trunks.

It was uncovered last November by a local nature warden when the peat dune covering it was swept away.”

[Full Story]

 

“Titanic finder discovers ancient Phoenician ships”

June 25, 1999, CNN, USA: “The same deep-sea explorers who discovered the Titanic have found an ancient time capsule off the coast of Israel — two well-preserved Phoenician ships dating from about 750 B.C..

The ships were carrying about 10 tons of wine each when it is believed they sank in a violent storm in the Mediterranean Sea about 2,700 years ago.

They were found in remarkable condition, sitting upright in about 1,500 feet of water.”

[Full Story]

 

“Protesters halt ‘Seahenge’ removal”

June 15, 1999, BBC Science News, UK: “Protesters have forced archaeologists to put off plans to remove the main part of a Bronze Age circle of wooden posts which emerged from the sea off the north Norfolk coast.

A group of about 12 druids and environmental campaigners sat on the centre of the historic structure, known as “Seahenge, to prevent English Heritage from moving it.

The structure consisted of the upturned foot of an oak tree surrounded by an oval of 55 oak trunks.”

[Full Story]

 

“‘Seahenge’ moves on”

May 26, 1999, BBC Science News, UK: “A Bronze Age circle of wooden posts, known as “Seahenge”, is being removed from the sands on the Norfolk coast. The wooden circle, which may have been a sacrificial altar, is being taken out of the beach because of concerns that coastal erosion will eventually destroy it.

Seahenge is thought to be 4,000 years old and would originally have stood on dry ground.

It is one of the most enthralling archaeological discoveries in our time,” said Sir Jocelyn Stevens, Chairman of English Heritage, who are organising the dig.”

[Full Story]

 

exclusive

October 2002

Morien Institute

illustrated interview with

Professor Masaaki Kimura

of the University of the Ruykyus,

Okinawa, Japan:

“Megalithic structures found underwater off the coast of

Yonaguni-jima, Japan”

please left-click to go directly the interview with Professor Masaaki Kimura


exclusive

June 2002

Morien Institute

illustrated interview with

Dr Paul Weinzweig

of Advanced Digital Communications,

Havana, Cuba, regarding

the discovery of:

“Megalithic urban ruins discovered off the coast of Cuba”

please left-click to go directly the interview with Dr Paul Weinzweig


“Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia”

Stephen Oppenheimer

an image/link direct to this product at amazon.com

EU English Edition

“A book that completetly changes the established and conventional view of prehistory by relocating the Lost Eden – the world’s 1st civilization – to SouthEast Asia. At the end of the Ice Age, SouthEast Asia formed a continent twice the size of India, which included Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia and Borneo.

The South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand and the Java sea, which were all dry, formed the connecting parts of the continent. Geologically, this half sunken continent is the Sunda shelf or Sundaland. He produces evidence from ethnography, archaeology, oceanography, from creation stories, myths and sagas and from linguistics and DNA analysis, to argue that this founder civilization was destroyed by a catastrophic flood, caused by a rapid rise in the sea level at the end of the last ice age.”

 

more underwater discoveries

Morien Institute Marine Archæology News Archive for

2009 |

2008 |

2007 |

2006 |

2005 |

2004 |

2003 |

2002 |

2001 |

2000 |

1999 |

1998 |

1997

Marine Archæology News Archive |

Astro-Archæology News Archive

Tsunami Past & Present

Terrestrial Archæology & Solar System History

News Headlines Archive

updated daily

 

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