Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization
Page 93
In my view the NIO should have refrained from such unwise, premature speculation and simply left the issue of the dating of the site open for the vast amount of further research that does indeed need to be done before anything can be confirmed. As one who has often been accused of prematurely assigning older dates to archaeological sites on the basis of too flimsy evidence, I find it ironic that the NIO should assign a possible date of 1500–1200 BP to this site without any evidence at all. The NIO is not even at this stage aware of the sea-level curve for this part of the south-east Indian coast – surely a crucial factor in any attempt to date the site.
Sincerely,
Graham Hancock
9 April 2002
Appendix 5 / Who Discovered the Underwater Ruins at Mahabalipuram? And Who is Claiming What?
Graham Hancock, 13 April 2002
Originally posted on ‘The Mysteries’ message hoard at
www.grahamhancock.com
(1) In another thread Martin Stower draws attention to the following commentary:
Mohapatra, G. P., and M. H. Prasad (1999), ‘Shoreline changes and their impact on the archaeological structures at Mahabalipuram’. Gondwana Geological Magazine, vol. 4, pp. 225–33. Reading this paper, person finds that they had proposed in print back in 1999 that underwater archaeological ruins lay offshore of the coast of Mahabalipuram. In this case, Hancock is wrong in stating ‘But here in Mahabalipuram we have proved the myths right and the academics wrong.’ In fact, he has proved the academics, in this case G. P. Mohapatra and M. H. Prasad, were correct in hypothesizing that the remains of ancient ruins lay offshore of coast of Mahabalipuram.
(2) I was unaware of Mohapatra and Prasad’s work; had I known of it, I would certainly have referred to it in Underworld. Apropos of this, during the recent SES/NIO expedition to Mahabalipuram, Kamlesh Vora informed the team that the NIO too had previously thought of diving there to check out the local flood tradition. This was back in the 1980s under the leadership of S. R. Rao (unfortunately now retired) – a man with a great interest in India’s flood myths. (See my interview with Rao in chapter 1 of Underworld, where he makes specific reference to the myths of lost lands off the south of India and to the relevance of these for marine archaeological research.) Apparently, however, the water was too ‘muddy’ when the NIO marine archaeologists arrived at Mahabalipuram and they decided not to dive. The project was never taken up again.
(3) There is no need for speculation about what exactly I’m claiming with regard to the Mahabalipuram underwater discoveries. My views are already on the record on this Message Board. Here are the two definitive passages:
6 April 2002
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.
9 April 2002
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.
(4) It should be clear from the above that I do not claim to be ‘the’ discoverer of these underwater ruins – the existence of which has been known since time immemorial to the local fishermen. Nor do I even claim to be ‘the’ theorist who first proposed the hypothesis that there might be ruins underwater offshore Mahabalipuram. As I report in Underworld, that ‘hypothesis’ has been around in scholarly circles since at least the eighteenth century. I and several others have subsequently made input to the elaboration of this hypothesis and the NIO actually set out to test it in the 1980s, but in the end did not go diving. Thereafter, the question of whether or not there were ruins underwater off Mahabalipuram lapsed into obscurity until Mohapatra’s and Prasad’s work on the one hand, and my own on the other. My path to understanding why the question was worth asking is described in Underworld. What I claim is to have been the first person to have followed that path all the way through to its logical conclusion and to have been instrumental in the actual discovery of actual ruins – ruins that had been previously suspected but never proven to exist -underwater off Mahabalipuram.
From my post of 9 April 2002:
It is in black and white on pages 199–22 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 or 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.
(5) Credit is also due and should be given to all who have played a part in this discovery – including Santha, Monty Halls, all the individual members of the SES and NIO diving teams and the steadfast Tamil fishermen of Mahabalipuram, who took us on board their little boats and straight out, with unerring accuracy, to each of the submerged sites. I have no idea whether the NIO is aware of Mohapatra’s and Prasad’s work, or whether the latter are aware of the work of the NIO. But when I come to update Underworld later this year I will certainly make reference to it.
Graham Hancock
Appendix 6 / UK Press Coverage of Mahabalipuram Discovery, April 2002
Daily Telegraph, 11 April 2002
DIVERS FIND REMAINS OF SIX LOST TEMPLES’
By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
A MYSTERIOUS settlement that sank beneath the waves at least 1,200 years ago has been discovered by divers off the south-east coast of India.
Granite blocks and walls that lie 20 ft below the surface may be the remains of six ‘lost temples’ that form part of local mythology.
The ruins came to light after the controversial amateur archaeologist and best-selling author Graham Hancock interviewed fishermen for a recent telev
ision series.
After hearing accounts of the myth of a submerged city, he and two dozen divers searched the sea bed last week.
India’s National Institute of Oceanography, which was involved in the discovery, believes the ruins at Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu could be 1,200 to 1,500 years old.
But Mr Hancock, who argues that civilisation predates the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians by thousands of years, believes the city could go back to 3000 BC.
The ruins were discovered half a mile off the coast by a team from the NIO and the UK-based Scientific Exploration Society. They include remains of walls and scattered carved blocks and stones and may cover several square miles.
According to local legend Mahabalipuram was once home to a great city. The gods became so jealous of its beauty that they sent a flood to swamp the city. Six temples were submerged, leaving just one on the shore.
Guardian, 11 April 2002
DIVERS ‘DISCOVER’ ANCIENT TEMPLE
James Meek, science correspondent
Thursday April 11, 2002
Indian and British scientists have brought back pictures from the seabed of what they say could be a vast temple complex off the coast of Tamil Nadu – the ruins of a long-lost city, drowned beneath the waves.
The granite ruins, if they are not natural formations, could be what remains of six legendary temples built 1,500 to 1,200 years ago, submerged as a result of natural subsidence.
However, Graham Hancock, the best-selling author of controversial books about lost civilisations, said the ruins could be much older. If they were submerged by globally rising sea levels, their age would be around 5,000 years.
The pictures are the result of a three day diving expedition by India’s National Institute of Oceanography and the Dorset-based Scientific Exploration Society. Mr Hancock, who dived with the team, said yesterday that SES had carried out the expedition at his suggestion.
‘Our divers were presented with a series of structures that clearly showed man-made attributes,’ said Monty Halls of the SES, who led the expedition.
‘This is plainly a discovery of international significance that demands further exploration and detailed investigation.’
The site lies at depths of five to seven metres, 500 to 700 metres off Mahabalipuram, the site of a temple on dry land that dates to the first millennium AD.
Mr Hancock, who is not an archaeologist and has infuriated many experts with his theories, said that he had inferred the existence of six temples underwater by collating the stories of local fishermen with a legend that referred to Mahabalipuram as the Seven Pagodas.
Mr Hancock admitted yesterday that the submerged ruins might not be old enough to relate to the kind of post-ice age flooding that destroyed the supposed civilisations of his books.
But he said their discovery vindicated his approach of seeking the substance in local myths. ‘I have argued for 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.’
Mr Hancock said the site ran for about two kilometres, and contained ‘a large conglomeration of large, clean-cut blocks in discrete areas. They seemed like several large ceremonial buildings surrounded by a lot of smaller ones.’
The Times, 11 April 2002
DIVERS DISCOVER ‘LOST CITY’ OFF INDIA
By Mark Henderson
SUBMERGED ruins found off India’s coast could be those of a legendary city said to have been swallowed by the sea, according to explorers who located the remains.
They are the second set of possible man-made ruins found off the subcontinent this year. Another ‘lost city’ was found off Gujarat in January, but that claim has been disputed by archaeologists.
The latest underwater stone structures were discovered last week by an Anglo-Indian team, diving a mile off the coast of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, southeast India. The geometrical patterns that look like a network of walls, roads and ramparts suggest they could have been part of the lost city of Melecherem, which, according to myth, was inundated by jealous gods.
Graham Hancock, an author who believes thousands of ancient civilizations were submerged at the end of the last Ice Age and who took part in last week’s expedition by the Dorset-based Scientific Exploration Society and the Indian National Institute of Oceanography, said the ruins had convinced him that the myth was founded in reality.
Daily Mail ‘Weekend’ Magazine, 27 April 2002
Fantastic tales of lost cities are usually dismissed as romantic myths, hut Graham Hancock claims that those very stories led him to a submerged site dating back at least 6000 years to the ice age – far older than any other city on earth. Has the amateur archaeologist really rewritten history! Andrew Wilson investigates.
A few seconds after diving beneath the ocean’s surface, Graham Hancock peered through the underwater gloom and saw the distinct outline of an ancient wall rising up from the sands. Swimming closer to the mysterious structure, he took out his diving knife and, in order to test whether this was a man-made building rather than a natural formation, ran his blade through the masonry joints. Stretching out across the ocean floor was an extensive network of walls which ran for at least a mile out into the Bay of Bengal – sunken ruins which stand as evidence of a lost civilization engulfed by the waves.
For years, the hidden underwater city at Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu, southern India, had been confined to the realms of mythology. Fishermen spoke of the gilt-edged tops of temples lying beneath the sea, and whispered of the elaborate pyramidal pagodas submerged for thousands of years, but science had dismissed their claims as folklore. However, Hancock’s discovery earlier this month of a lost civilization at Mahabalipuram, 30 miles south of Chennai (the former Madras), which Hancock believes could date back at least 6000 years, could force us to rewrite the history books.
Hancock’s theory, that civilization began not with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia about 5000 years ago, but in a number of cities submerged by cataclysmic floods between 17,000 and 7000 years ago – has been widely rubbished by academics. Yet research arising out of this new discovery suggests that the maverick writer’s views could be rooted in fact. On returning from the dive, Hancock contacted a world-renowned expert in ice age sea levels, who, with the help of a very sophisticated computer, confirmed that the site dated from approximately 6000 years ago.
‘If this figure proves correct – and, in truth, a lot more work needs to be done – then it changes everything,’ says Hancock. ‘We can no longer think of the so-called “Fertile Crescent” of Sumeria as the cradle of civilization. The idea that cities first started to be built around 3500 BC also goes out of the window. What seems more likely from the large body of evidence I have compiled is that there were a number of cities built before this time which were submerged by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age. Mahabalipuram, I suspect, is one of them.’
Hancock’s detective work begins with a detailed study of an area’s flood myths, tales he believes grew up because of a very real phenomenon – the 400-feet rise in global sea levels after the melting of the ice caps. After researching a particular flood myth, Hancock then studies maps to show how the region would have looked at the end of the ice age. If the sea level data matches details passed down through an oral tradition, he believes there’s a good chance a hidden city could be lying just below the waves.
Hancock first outlined his theories in his 1995 book Fingerprints of the Gods. The title may have established him as a literary Indiana Jones (the book sold a staggering 4.5 million copies), but it incurred the wrath of scholars and academics, who attacked him for what they saw as his selective presentation of evidence, lack of integrity and vulgar sensationalism. ‘Scientists asked me to try to substantiate my theories – to find actual sites to support my beliefs – and that’s what I’ve been doing over the past few years, touring the world in search of the lost underwater cities. South India is a black hole in te
rms of archaeological research, as there doesn’t appear to be any trace of human activity between 12,000 and 3000 years ago. But what if the centres of an ancient civilization had once been located along its old coastline, land which was subsequently submerged by flood water?’
His connection with Mahabalipuram stretches back to his childhood when, as a five-year-old boy, he learnt to swim in its sparkling blue water. Born in Edinburgh in 1950, he arrived in India in July 1954 with his parents – his father had been appointed as a surgeon at the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore. ‘Imprinted on my memory for years afterwards – until I returned there in fact and was able to overlay old memories with new ones – were images of the eerie rock-hewn temples of Mahabalipuram, overlooking the Bay of Bengal and dating back 1200–1500 years.’ In 1992 he travelled to India on a sentimental journey – his family had returned to Britain in 1958 and he wanted to revisit some of the places of his childhood.
During that visit he bought a musty old book, an anthology of traveller’s journals, from a shop in Madras, a volume which would later form the first clue in his underwater detective story. Although he didn’t read the book until two years ago, its contents forced him to reassess everything he knew about Mahabalipuram. He learnt for the first time of the ‘Seven Pagodas’ story – the six temples submerged beneath the sea, with the seventh still standing on the shore.
‘A Brahmin about 50 years of age, a native of the place … informed me his grandfather had frequently mentioned having seen the gilt tops of pagodas in the surf, no longer visible,’ wrote one traveller in 1798. According to myth, the ancient ruler of the kingdom constructed a city of such magnificence at Mahabalipuram that the gods grew jealous and orchestrated a tremendous flood to swallow it in a single day. The God of the Sea was ordered to ‘let loose his billows and overflow a place which impiously pretended to view in splendour with their celestial mansions,’ wrote the traveller. ‘This command he obeyed, and the city was at once overflowed by that furious element, nor has it ever since been able to rear its head.’