Ancient
city may predate Sumerian civilization.Ancient City
Ancient
city may predate Sumerian civilization.
Mr. Hancock says a civilization thriving there may predate the Sumerian
civilization of Mesopotamia in present-day Iraq and definitely existed
before the Harappan civilization in India and Pakistan. He has been
excavating the site off the coast of Poompuhar, near Nagapattinam, 400 km
south of Chennai.
At a meeting of the Mythic Society in Bangalore in early December, Mr.
Hancock said underwater explorations in 2001 provided evidence that
corroborated Tamil mythological stories of ancient floods. He said tidal
waves of 400 feet or more could have swallowed this flourishing port city
any time between 17,000 and 7,000 years ago, the date of the last Ice Age.
The Gulf of Cambay was also submerged, taking with it evidence of early
man´s migration. The populations Mr. Wells and Mr. Pitchappan (see
previous article) mapped settled on India´s East Coast 50,000 to 35,000
years ago and developed into modern man. According to Hancock, "the
Poompuhar underwater site could well provide evidence that it was the
cradle of modern civilization." Hancock´s theory is strengthened by
findings of India´s National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), which has
explored the site since the 1980s.
Man-made structures like well rims, horseshoe-shaped building sites are
some of the lost city´s secrets. At low tide, some brick structures from
the Sangam era are still visible in places like Vanagiri. The region,
archaeologists say, has been built over and over again through the ages
and some of its past is now being revealed. Mr. Glenn Milne, a British
geologist from Durham University, has confirmed Hancock´s theory.