Ancient

Searching For Underwater Ruins
Photo Source: Stock.xching

There are ruins all over this planet of ours. Some of the ruins are only a little more than a hundred years old and can be found in places like the American west. These types of ruins are usually in the form of Ghost Towns. Ghost towns are the empty towns of what were formerly mining communities and such. When the mines ran out, there was no more work and people left. Sometimes they didn't even take anything with them and you can see things like furniture inside some of the deteriorating houses and buildings. Another reason for Ghost Towns was the lack of railroad service. When railroad lines were put in they sometimes bypassed some towns and this caused them to wither and die. We do have some older ruins in this country and some are even from the Stone Age, but this is not what I am going to talk about here.

It seems that underwater ruins are being discovered all over the world. We know that there are plenty of ancient ruins all over Europe and Asia, just to mention a couple of places, but there may be many unexpected ruin sites under the water. A lot of our land was open before it sank and communities were built along the shore because it was easy to fish and even grow crops in that fertile soil. As time passed the ocean, or other bodies of water covered that area and the people had to move further inland. Sometimes an island, or part of an island sank due to things like volcanic activity or maybe an earthquake. When these sank, they created a perfect record of how people of that area lived. Then there is the not so ancient ruins that were caused when entire towns were put under water due to the construction of reservoirs and dams. These towns are perfectly preserved and may be of interest to future generations.

Most people believe that to find a really ancient structure like Stonehenge you have to go to Europe, but this may not be true. It just might turn out that you only have to go to Michigan. A group of researchers were looking for shipwrecks at the bottom of Lake Michigan and found something that really blew their minds. They found what they believe to be a 10,000 year old Stonehenge like structure. This is not all they found. They believe that a rock on the structure is carved in the shape of a mastodon. What is amazing is that this information was released last year and yet hardly anyone knows about it. The area is known for petroglyphs and other standing stones. It is believed that part of the lake bed was dry in the late Ice Age, giving ancient people a chance to erect the stones. The structure is in the Grand Traverse Bay area of the lake. Divers who have seen the carving of the mastodon say that it has a spear in its side.

Ruins?
Photo Source: MorgueFile

A famous underwater ruin and one that had caused a lot of controversy, is the ruin that is off the coast of a Japanese island. In was discovered in 1985 and is a pryamidal type structure. The structure certainly looks to be man made, but the problem is that it is sort of a block type structure and if you look above the water on the island above, one sees rocks that are block like. Some divers have stated that if they back up from the structure a face is visible carved in the rock. There seems to be steps leading up to what might be an altar and various holes are visible that also seem to be man made. Some archaeologists are willing to stake their reputations on the fact that this is a structure built by man, but there are a few others that say it is all the action of the waves that smoothed this out to make it look this way and that the others are falling for a trick of the eyes when they say that they see a face.

Everyone likes to try and link underwater discoveries with Atlantis. It has gotten to the point where it is almost laughable, especially when we really can't be sure that Atlantis even existed. When we talk about undersea ruins we have to keep in mind that the earth looked different many thousands of years ago and because of this, there were puzzles left for us. An example of this is Tiahuanacu, a seaport. What makes it very strange is the fact that it is 12,600 feet in altitude and 15 miles from Lake Titicaca. Why would there be a seaport up there? That is not the only problem, there are stone blocks all over the area some as heavy as 440 tons. Again that old question rears its ugly head, how could anyone move these things back then? Apparently the stones were used to build piers and docks. Could there be ruins under Lake Titicaca and could the lake have been so much bigger that it once reached this city?

A Russian underwater explorer named Paulina Zelitsky is world famous for discovering the remains of the U.S. Battleship Maine, and discovered underwater ruins off the coast of Cuba. It was described as a great underwater plateau with what look like the remains of enormous structures. She said that they looked to be of human manufacture. She went on to say that the shapes reminded her of pyramids, streets and buildings. When the discovery was announced at the turn of the last century, people started saying again that Atlantis had been discovered. Scientists are saying that the stones that they saw were cut to fit. Numerous inscriptions were also said to have been found at the site. Another scientist stated, "Sonar images revealed an extensive series of structures over a several-mile area in darker and lighter shades. The site is close to the edge of the underwater geological feature known as the Cuban shelf, which falls off sharply in a series of shelves which drop down to several thousand meters, and it is on one of these shelves, in around 600 - 700 meters of water, that the structures are to be found."

Sometimes people spend their entire lives looking for lost cities and other times they are found by accident. The ruins off the coast of Cuba were found by people looking for sunken treasure ships. The Cuban government had entered into a joint mission with a Canadian company. It is believed that many Spanish treasure ships might have sunk in the area and I guess Cuba desperately needs more funds. If we go back almost 50 years we find unconfirmed reports that Soviet submarines discovered an underwater building complex in the area.

Underwater ruins have been found under Fuxian Lake in China. There is, what has been described as a huge group of ancient buildings under the lake. The stones at the lake bottom contained fascinating carvings. Chinese records indicate that there was a city in the Fuxian Lake area from 306 BC To 24AD and that the city sank to the bottom of the lake with all its people. The ruins are said to cover 10.8 million square feet. One structure at the lake bottom is said to be a pyramid. A symbol of the sun was found and that is believed to be far older than the city in the legend, putting the theory that the city was from 306 BC in doubt. If it turns out that this city is far older than 2000 years, then archaeologists will be hard pressed to figure out what tools were used to create all the carvings that have been found.