Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

by Graham Hancock

  Moreover, the Pallava temples on land at Mahabalipuram are reliably dated to 1500 to 1200 years ago – precisely the same period suggested by the NIO for the submerged ruins that we now know lie a mile and more offshore. If both groups of structures do date from the same period, however, then the NIO must be able to explain why one group is now submerged beneath the sea to depths of between 5 and 7 metres (15 and 21 feet) whilst the other is still above water.

  An obvious explanation, and the one preferred by the NIO, is that there must have been massive coastal erosion in this area, or that perhaps a stretch of the coast just collapsed in some wild, unpredictable tectonic event – perhaps not even tremendously long ago – that submerged the big Pallava constructions on one side of the fault-line while leaving those on the other side intact and still on dry land.

  Another possibility, however – one not even considered by the NIO in its statement – is that the submerged group could be significantly older than the group on land. As we’ve seen throughout Underworld, sea-level rose more than 100 metres at the end of the last Ice Age (between 17,000 years ago and about 5000 years ago) and if it is sea-level rise alone that has submerged the megalithic structures offshore of Mahabalipuram, then how old are they likely to be?

  Bombshell

  On our return from India on 6 April 2002 I e-mailed Dr Glenn Milne, the international expert on sea-level rise whose inundation maps have been used throughout Underworld, and told him what we’d found at Mahabalipuram. Perhaps he and other geologists at Durham University could help clarify how big a part sea-level rise had played in submergence of the ruins and suggest a date when they had last stood above water.

  Glenn’s reply, repeated a few days later on BBC Television’s national 6 o’clock news, came as a bit of a bombshell:

  I had a chat with some of my colleagues here in the Dept. of Geological Sciences and it is probably reasonable to assume that there has been very little vertical tectonic motion in this region during the past five thousand years or so. Therefore, the dominant process driving sea-level change will have been due to the melting of the Late Pleistocene ice-sheets. Looking at predictions from a computer model of this process suggests that the area where the structures exist would have been submerged around six thousand years ago. Of course, there is some uncertainty in the model predictions and so there is a flexibility of roughly plus or minus one thousand years in this date.

  The U-shaped structure of Poompuhur

  Prevailing archaeological opinion recognizes no culture in India 6000 years ago capable of building anything much – let alone a series of vast megalithic structures on the scale and extent that confronts us at Mahabalipuram. Nor does the mystery stop here. As we’ve seen, the fishermen at Mahabalipuram speak of other ruins, even further out from shore in much deeper water, which remain to be identified and explored. On my travels in the region (see chapter 11) I’ve also heard reports of mysterious underwater structures off Poompuhur, Rameswaram (overlooking the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka) and Kaniya Kumari (Cape Comorin) in the far south of the subcontinent. The reader will recall the pervasive Tamil flood myth linking all these areas that speaks of a lost land called Kumari Kandam that was swallowed up by the sea in three terrible deluges, the first of which took place 11,500 years ago.

  In the early 1990s the NIO conducted a marine archaeological survey off Poompuhur for the state government of Tamil Nadu and discovered a very large and apparently man-made structure more than 5 kilometres from shore at a depth of 23 metres (70 feet). The story of this discovery is told in chapter 1 of Underworld and followed up in chapter 14. Its potential importance arises exclusively from the depth of submergence of the structure – which suggests, as the reader will recall, that it could have been underwater for 11,000 years. If it is man-made, therefore, then the obvious implication is that it must have been built more than 11,000 years ago when it still stood on dry land. And just as archaeologists know of no culture in south India more than 6000 years ago that would have been capable of building the now-submerged structures at Mahabalipuram, so also they know of none at Poompuhur (or anywhere else in India, or in the world) that would have been capable of any project on the scale of the U-shaped structure more than 11,000 years ago.

  The results of the SES/NIO expedition to Poompuhur in March 2002 were inconclusive. Despite extensive dives over a period of ten days the team could not reach a unanimous verdict on the U-shaped structure. On two shows of hands a clear majority of the group, including one of the two NIO marine archaeologists, concluded that it is man-made. But there were significant exceptions to this view and I therefore do not yet claim to have proved the case for the structure’s artificiality that I set out in chapter 14. On my own dives with the team in March 2002 I did, however, notice several features of the structure that had not previously caught my eye. Of these I believe the most interesting are (1) sections of what appears to be a second, lower wall, about 2 metres from the main wall and running parallel to it, that may once have completely surrounded the structure; (2) the impression reported by several divers as well as myself that the main wall of the structure is octagonal or hexagonal in form (‘like the old threepenny bits’, commented Trevor Jenkins) rather than explicitly ‘U-shaped’; (3) well-formed courses of blocks clearly visible beneath marine growth at several points on the structure; (4) evidence from visual examination of a sample that the material of which these blocks are made is laterite – a common construction stone in south India since times immemorial; (5) the presence of large symmetrical slabs (approx 1.5 metres × 1.5 metres × 0.5 metres) scattered on the seabed near a smaller mound 45 metres north-west of the U-shaped structure; (6) evidence from side-scan sonar readings of other anomalous structures nearby, including one identified in March 2002 as a straight wall approximately 100 metres in length, lying in 25 metres of water and almost 7 kilometres from land.

  I believe that the U-shaped structure has passed the crucial first test of close scrutiny over a lengthy period by a team of divers and marine archaeologists. It has not yet been decisively proved to be man-made but it has certainly not been proved to be natural either. It remains an anomaly and an enigma. And as is the case with the mysterious underwater ruins of Mahabalipuram, it cries out for further research …

  Appendix 1 / Report on the Completion of the Joint SES/NIO Expedition to South-east India

  Graham Hancock, 6 April 2002

  Originally posted on ‘The Mysteries’ message board at

  www.grahamhancock.com

  Hi folks,

  Santha and I flew back in from Tamil Nadu this morning.

  As regulars on this MB know, we have been diving at Poompuhur and at Mahabalipuram in south-east India. We have had the privilege of working there with ten first-rate divers from Britain led by Monty Halls of the Scientific Exploration Society and with a great team from India’s National Institute of Oceanography led by Kamlesh Vora.

  At Poompuhur, despite intensive diving on the mysterious U-shaped structure submerged about 5 kilometres offshore at a depth of 23 metres (see chapters 1 and 14 of Underworld), we could not reach a unanimous verdict. On two shows of hands a clear majority of the group, including one of the two NIO marine archaeologists, concluded that it is a man-made structure. But there were significant exceptions to this view and I therefore do not claim to have proved my case there during this expedition.

  Over the coming week or so I will set out on this site, supported by photography, the principal pieces of evidence that convince me and others that the structure is man-made. A great deal more work is going to have to be done on it and neighbouring structures, however, before the matter can be regarded as having been satisfactorily settled – one way or the other.

  The reason for this continuing uncertainty, despite the best efforts of a large group of determined and objective researchers, lies in the very bad diving conditions and poor visibility at Poompuhur, which hamper and restrict the work underwater at all times.

 
At Mahabalipuram, the other objective of the expedition, the situation is much clearer. A press conference will be held on 10 April 2002 to announce the extraordinary underwater discoveries that our team made there last week up to 2 kilometres from shore at depths of 5 to 7 metres. Relevant pages in Underworld where I describe my research in Mahabalipuram that led directly to these discoveries are 119–122 and 258–261.

  Of course, the real discoverers of this amazing and very extensive submerged site are the local fishermen of Mahabalipuram. My role was simply to take what they had to say seriously and to take the town’s powerful and distinctive flood myths seriously. Since no diving had ever been done to investigate these neglected myths and sightings, I decided that a proper expedition had to be mounted. To this end, about a year ago, I brought together my friends at the Scientific Exploration Society (SES) in Britain and the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in India and we embarked on the long process that has finally culminated in the discovery of a major and hitherto completely unknown submerged archaeological site.

  I’ll try to find out next week the date that Glenn Milne’s model suggests for the submergence of the Mahabalipuram structures. Meanwhile, I want to state very clearly and for the record that I am making no claims as to the age of the structures, or what they are, or who built them, or why and when they were inundated. All this will have to be established through further research – which the NIO estimates will take many years and will involve the participation of experts from many different disciplines. I do, however, feel fully vindicated in the view that I have long held and expressed in my books and television series that flood myths deserve to be taken seriously and can lead to the discovery of significant underwater ruins.

  The information that we have gathered at Mahabalipuram up to now will be released at the SES press conference on 10 April.

  Appendix 2 / SES Press Release, 5 April 2002, Announcing the Discovery of Underwater Ruins at Mahabalipuram and Inviting Media to a Press Reception, 10 April 2002

  The Scientific Exploration Society is proud to announce a major discovery of submerged ruins off the south-east coast of India and invite you to a Press Reception at 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday 10 April 2002, at the Nehru Centre, 8, South Audley Street, London WIK IHF.

  Following a theory first proposed by bestselling author and television presenter Graham Hancock, a joint expedition of 25 divers from the Scientific Exploration Society (SES) and India’s National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) led by Monty Halls and accompanied by Graham Hancock have indeed discovered an extensive area with a series of structures that clearly show man-made attributes, at a depth of 5–7 metres offshore of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu.

  The scale of the submerged ruins, covering several square miles and at distances of up to a mile from shore, ranks this as a major marine-archaeological discovery as spectacular as the ruined cities submerged off Alexandria in Egypt.

  This could prove the ancient myths of a huge city, so beautiful that the gods became jealous and sent a flood that swallowed it up entirely in a single day!

  Come and listen to Graham Hancock, Monty Halls and view unique pictures/ video. Further info www.india-atlantis.org.

  Contacts: Melissa Dice; Tel: 01747 854898; email: base@ses-explore.org; Sarah Jane Lewis (Press) Tel: 01963 240468.

  Appendix 3 / Preliminary Underwater Archaeological Explorations of Mahabalipuram. Statement by National Institute of Oceanography, 9 April 2002

  A team of underwater archaeologists from National Institute of Oceanography NIO have successfully ‘unearthed’ evidence of submerged structures off Mahabalipuram and established first-ever proof of the popular belief that the Shore temple of Mahabalipuram is the remnant of series of a total seven of such temples built that have been submerged in succession. The discovery was made during a joint underwater exploration with Scientific Exploration Society, UK.

  The team of archaeologists from NIO, trained in diving, carried out underwater exploration on April 1–4, 2002 and have successfully recorded evidence of presence of ruins underwater off Mahabalipuram. The salient features of the findings are as follows:

  Underwater investigations were carried out at 5 locations in the 5–8 m water depths, 500 to 700 m off Shore temple.

  Investigations at each location have shown presence of the construction of stone masonry, remains of walls, a big square rock-cut remains, scattered square and rectangular stone blocks, big platform leading the steps to it amidst of the geological formations of the rocks that occur locally.

  Most of the structures are badly damaged and scattered in a vast area, having biological growth of Barnacles, Mussels and other organisms.

  The construction pattern and area, about 100 m × 50 m, appears to be same at each location. The actual area covered by ruins may extend well beyond the explored locations.

  Based on what appears to be a Lion figure, of location 4, ruins are inferred to be parts of temple complex.

  The possible date of the ruins may be 1500–1200 years BP. Pallava dynasty, ruling the area during the period, has constructed many such rock-cut and structural temples in Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram.

  To place reasonable arguments on submergence of ruins, a full-scale investigations are underway to record the role of sea-level fluctuations, coastal erosion and neo-tectonic activities in effecting shoreline changes in the area in the recent past.

  The site has great potential to explore total lay-out plan of the structures and causes of submergence.

  Appendix 4 / Comments by Graham Hancock on the NIO Statement of 9 April 2002 Regarding Preliminary Underwater Archaeological Explorations off Mahabalipuram

  I have only two comments to make on the NIO press release, but both of them are grave.

  (1) Despite a friendship with the NIO stretching back over two years, I note that the NIO statement makes no mention of my instrumental role in bringing about these exciting discoveries off Mahabalipuram. I regret this oversight, since there can be no doubt that I have earned the right to recognition in this discovery and that my input both in formulating the hypothesis of submerged ruins at Mahabalipuram, in putting that hypothesis forcefully before the public, and in the conception and implementation of an expedition to test that hypothesis has been absolutely decisive.

  It is in black and white on pages 119–22 and pages 258–61 of my book Underworld (published by Penguin 7 February 2002), and in my Channel 4 Television Series Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age (broadcast 11, 18 and 25 February 2002) that I have long regarded Mahabalipuram, because of its flood myths and fishermen’s sightings, as a very likely place in which discoveries of underwater structures could be made, and that I proposed that a diving expedition should be undertaken there.

  It is also absolutely a matter of record that it was I who subsequently took the initiative to bring together the Scientific Exploration Society (SES) and the NIO during 2001 so that the expedition could take place and that I expended considerable efforts putting the two groups in touch and nudging along their co-operation.

  I think you will find if you remove Graham Hancock from the equation that another twenty or many more years might have elapsed before the marine archaeology division of the NIO would have dived at Mahabalipuram.

  If you remove Graham Hancock from the equation, the SES and the NIO would not have been brought together and the SES would not even have been aware that there was a mystery to investigate at Mahabalipuram.

  In other words if you remove Graham Hancock from the equation it is a plain fact, and nothing more nor less than the truth, that neither the NIO nor the SES would have been diving at Mahabalipuram.

  The discoveries that we have made might have been made later, or never at all. Such questions are entirely hypothetical, however. The fact is that the discovery has been made now and that my research, initiatives and efforts were instrumental in bringing it about. In any kind of moral or decent universe, in which credit is given where credit is due, I believe that I deserve some recognition for
this. I ask nothing more than that.

  (2) My second comment on the statement concerns the unwisdom and unfortunate disregard of basic scientific procedure on the part of the NIO in speculating about a possible date of 1500 BP to 1200 BP for the submerged ruins. This speculation seems largely to be based on what is claimed to be a sculpture of a lion at location 4 – thought to be typical of the sculptural art of the Pallava dynasty. Unfortunately, however, neither of the two NIO marine archaeologists who were diving with us actually saw the alleged ‘figure’. The only people who did were myself and my dive-buddy Trevor Jenkins. It was Trevor who first spotted it. We then examined it together and Trevor shot video footage of it. All other comments on this lion figure are second-hand, based on viewings of Trevor’s video footage only.

  My own very much first-hand comment is that if the figure is indeed that of a lion, this by no means confirms a connection with the Pallavas – since lion sculptures are typical of whole swathes of Indian art and symbolism and cannot be regarded as a Pallava monopoly. More importantly, the so-called lion figure is by no means necessarily a lion figure at all. As noted above, I am one of only two divers who have seen it and handled it, and I suspect strongly that it is not a lion’s head and perhaps not even part of a statue. I had not voiced that suspicion before now because I thought the scientific community believed that weighty conclusions one way or another about possible archaeological discoveries should only be reached after much further research. But now I see that, without doing any research at all, and without any marine archaeologists ever having examined the alleged ‘figure’, the NIO rushes in to suggest a possible date in its statement.