Life Under Water - Exploring the Ancient Cities
Exploring Underwater Cities Of The Past
As humankind's exploration of the Earth's depths continues, we are faced with an incredible array of new discoveries. One of the most exciting finds in recent years have been the ancient ruins that lie beneath the sea.
One of these incredible ruins is the sunken city of Heracleion, which was discovered off the coast of the Greek island of Antirrio in 2004. The city was once a thriving port and archaeological evidence shows that it was a major city in the late 6th century BCE.
The city was found to be relatively intact due to the fact that it was situated in a deep bay and protected from the sea by breakwaters. This means that archaeologists were able to uncover hundreds of artefacts, from gold coins and jewellery to large granite statues.
The remains of Heracleion were slowly uncovered with a combination of underwater archaeology and remote sensing. Remote sensing allowed researchers to gain a better idea of the city's layout before diver teams were sent in to catalog and retrieve artefacts.
The ancient city of Thonis-Heracleion is just one of many submerged settlements around the world, and far from alone in the Mediterranean. Similar underwater ruins have been discovered near the islands of Israel and Cyprus, as well as off the coast of Egypt and Turkey.
More recently, a sunken Roman city was discovered off the coast of the modern city of Caesarea in Israel. The remains of the city, which was a port in antiquity, have been dated to 4000 years ago and are still being recovered.
These underwater cities offer an incredible insight into the past of humankind and show that human engineering was more advanced that we ever thought.
We are only just scratching the surface of the many sunken cities around the world, with many more still to be discovered. Who knows what we will find in the depths.