Yonaguni Underwater Japan. Remnants of an Ancient Civilization? Evidence for the existence of a vast underwater world containing structures stretching back. The Establishment Has Already Acknowledged A Lost Race of Giants - Part 1.

.Ellen Lloyd– AncientPages.com – It’s difficult to say where we can find traces of the world’s oldest civilization because many ancient underwater ruins still await our discovery. There are a great number of mysteries beneath the waters, and we have only unraveled a small percent of them.In the Sumerian creation myth Enki and Ninhursag, made a promise saying he will create a marvelous land called Dilmun where life can thrive.“For Dilmun, the land of my lady’s heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives.”“Most scholars agree the in our recorded history. Mesopotamia is therefore often characterized as the cradle of civilization.” 1This doesn’t necessarily mean that Sumerians were the oldest civilization. There is archaeological evidence that advanced ancient civilizations existed long before the Sumerians. The also called the Harappan civilization was one of the world’s largest and oldest civilizations, and it's very possible they predate the Pharaohs and Sumerians.Scientist Jeffrey Rose from the Birmingham University has suggested that paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran provide us with vital clues about some of the earliest civilizations that walked the Earth. Ruins Of Long-Lost Arabian - Persian Civilization May Be World’s OldestAccording to Rose, mysterious underwater ruins discovered at the bottom of the Persian Gulf could be traces of the world’s oldest civilization. Discoveries made in the Persian Gulf Oasis have the potential to re-write history.Underwater archaeologists have discovered more than 60 ancient submerged settlements beneath the waters of the Arabo-Persian Gulf.

The settlements date to around 5,500 B.C. And their inhabitants were a “prospering Neolithic population practicing a combination of fishing, date palm cultivation, and animal husbandry.” 2A map that shows Arabian Peninsula with regions that were exposed as sea levels fell, and so became environmental refugees, possibly for some of the earliest humans out of Africa. Credit: Current AnthropologyThis may sound like a primitive culture, but scientists have made surprising discoveries that give us reason to reconsider our knowledge about the past. Among the many submerged ancient ruins resting at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, there are sophisticated stone houses that could only have been built by an advanced culture.The underwater artifacts discovered at the site are richly decorated and show evidence of trade with foreign lands. Scientists found submerged long-distance trade networks, and evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world.Who were these people and where did they come from? There are some clues, but not many.This unknown ancient civilization was erased from history pages because of climate change.Some suggest the ancient underwater ruins unearthed in the Persian Gulf are remains of Dilmun that may have been the legendary Garden of Eden. Painting Thomas Cole: The Garden of Eden - Credit: Public Domain'Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well-developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago,' Rose said.

'These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean.' “Although part of that jump in settlement may be a shift from ephemeral hunting camps to more sedentary occupations with permanent architectural structures, thus, greater archaeological visibility, other indications in the material record suggest that the inhabitants of the region underwent a fundamental demographic transformation. Did The Ubadians Originally Come From Eastern Arabia?Middle Holocene sites around the Gulf are distinguished by the appearance of Mesopotamian-style plain and painted pottery called “‘Ubaid ware.” 2Between 5,500–4,000 B.C. Much of Mesopotamia shared a common culture, called Ubaid. The Ubadians, named after the site, where pottery from the period was first discovered, at Tell al-'Ubaid in southern Mesopotamia were sophisticated, but Rose suggests these people were present in other parts of the world, and not only Mesopotamia.Ubaid period pottery, Susa I, 4th Millenium BC. Similar artifacts were found underwater in the Persian Gulf.

Image credit: Siren-Com, CC BY-SA 3.0In his science paper, Rose explains that “stylistically, ceramics from these sites fall within the ‘Ubaid 3 to ‘Ubaid 5 archaeological phases. A recent appraisal of ‘Ubaid ceramics around the Gulf places almost all of these assemblages within the ‘Ubaid 3 period. 2See also:Only a few sites possess a subsequent ‘Ubaid 4 element, and just two findspots in Qatar and Bahrain have a final ‘Ubaid 5 component. This is highly significant as it suggests that the introduction of ‘Ubaid-related sites in eastern Arabia falls within a single millennium. In addition, there is only one stratified ‘Ubaid-related site in eastern Arabia, Ain Qannas, that has an underlying archaeological implying that all other ‘Ubaid-related sites were established on previously unsettled land. Is Dilmun Resting At The Bottom Of The Persian Gulf?Dilmun was an important place for the Sumerians.

Mentioned in Sumerian economics texts as an independent ancient kingdom, it was a commercial center that flourished around 2,000 B.C on Bahrain Island in the Persian Gulf. Dilmun’s location has never been confirmed and Bahrain is only a candidate.

Some suggest Dilmun may have been the legendary.Could the ancient underwater ruins lying scattered at the bottom of the Persian Gulf be remains of this once important ancient kingdom? Digital combat simulator world. Rose thinks there is a possibility we may have discovered the underwater ruins of Dilmun, but he emphasizes the more important aspect of this archaeological finding.Dilmun stamp seal with hunters and goats, rectangular pen, ca early 2nd Millennium B.C.

Credit: Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe underwater ruins in the Persian Gulf offer evidence this part of the world was inhabited for much longer than previously thought. This place was home to a developed society. About 8,000 years ago the Gulf flooded and the Indian Ocean swallowed the culture. Rose suggests that the underwater lands would have been a 'Persian Gulf Oasis' - a rich and fertile region perhaps home to humans for as much as 100,000 years before it was submerged.If Rose is correct, then the underwater ruins in the Persian Gulf clearly show an advanced, long-lost civilization was present in the region before the emergence of the Pharaohs and Sumerians.

This is incredible evidence that changes our understanding of ancient history.Written by Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.comCopyright © AncientPages.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.com Expand for references.

Lost Lands are islands or continents believed by some to have existed during pre-history, but to have since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological phenomena. Such continents are generally thought to have subsided into the sea, leaving behind only a few traces or legends by which they may be known.

Legends of lost lands often originated as scholarly or scientific theories, only to be picked up by writers and individuals outside the academy. Occult and New Age writers have made use of Lost Lands, as have subaltern peoples such as the Tamils in India.

Phantom Islands, as opposed to Lost Lands, are land masses formerly believed by cartographers to exist in the current historical age, but to have been discredited as a result of expanding geographic knowledge.

The classification of lost lands as continents, islands, or other regions is in some cases subjective; for example, Atlantis is variously described as either a 'lost island' or a 'lost continent'. Lost land theories may originate in mythology or philosophy, or in scholarly or scientific theories, such as catastrophic theories of geology.^{[citation needed]}

Lost continents[edit]

In the 1954 book Lost Continents by L. Sprague de Camp, he describes many modern writers who have speculated about ancient civilizations that existed on continents now deluged under the sea.^[1] According to de Camp, there is no real scientific evidence for any lost continents whatsoever.

• The most famous lost continent is Atlantis. Atlantis, like Hyperborea and Thule, is ultimately derived from ancient Greek geographic speculation and possibly memories of the Minoan eruption of the Thera volcano.
• The name of hypothetical vanished continent Mu originated from the first attempted translation of the Madrid Codex, one of only four remaining Maya codices.
• Zealandia, a scientifically accepted continent that is now 94% submerged under the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the areas of New Zealand and New Caledonia.
• A land connecting India and South Africa was believed by some to exist at various times. Lemuria and Kumari Kandam.

Submerged lands[edit]

Although the existence of lost continents in the above sense is mythical (aside from Zealandia), there were many places on Earth that were once dry land but submerged after the ice age around 10,000 BCE due to rising sea levels, and possibly were the basis for neolithic and bronze ageflood myths. Some others were lost due to coastal erosion or volcanic eruptions. Approximately listed by size, these are:

• Sundaland, the now submerged Sunda Shelf.
• Kerguelen Plateau, a submerged micro-continent which is now 1–2 km below sea level.
• Beringia, connecting Asia and North America.
• Doggerland, the bed of the North Sea, which once connected Great Britain to Continental Europe before being inundated by rising sea levels during the Holocene.
• A large island in the Mediterranean Sea, of which Malta is the only part not now submerged.
• Maui Nui, once a large island of the Hawaii archipelago; several major islands represent residual high ground of Maui Nui.
• New Moore Island, an island in the Bay of Bengal submerged in 2010 by rising sea levels.
• Verdronken Land van Reimerswaal, most of this region in The Netherlands vanished in a storm in 1532; the town of Reimerswaal survived as an island into the 17th century; the last bits of land vanished in the early 19th century.
• Strand, an island off the German coast with the town Rungholt, eroded away by storm surges before being washed away by a final flood in 1634.
• Jomsborg and Vineta, legendary cities on the south coast of the Baltic Sea supposed to have been submerged in the Middle Ages.
• Jordsand, once an island off the Danish coast, eroded away by storm surges before being washed away by a final flood between 1998 and 1999.
• Ferdinandea, submerged volcanic island which has appeared at least four times in the past.
• Sarah Ann Island, now submerged guano island, located just north of the equator. Vanished between 1917 and 1932.
• Ravenser Odd, a large 13th-century town on an old sandbank promontory in East Yorkshire, which became an island and then vanished in January 1392.
• Dunwich, the traditional capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles that was lost to the sea by gradual coast erosion and partly by a storm surge in 1286.
• Dadu Island, which was legally the southernmost point of the United States of America, located at Palmyra Atoll and still shown on the map (an incorporated U.S. territory), was a bare sand islet washed away by a storm in 2014. (It was named after a dog 'Dadu' that had lived at the atoll.^[2])

Mythological lands[edit]

• Atlantis, Plato's utopian paradise.
• Lemuria, a mythical lost continent with an ancient Tamil civilization in the Indian or the Pacific Ocean.
• Avalon, the mythical lost land or island in Arthurian, Cornish and Welsh legend.
• Buyan, an island with the ability to appear and disappear in Slavic mythology.
• Cantre'r Gwaelod, in Welsh legend, the ancient sunken realm said to have occupied a tract of fertile land lying between Ramsey Island and Bardsey Island in what is now Cardigan Bay to the west of Wales.
• Iram of the Pillars, a reference to a lost city, country or area mentioned in the Qur'an.
• Kitezh, a legendary underwater city located in Russia, populated by spiritual people.
• Llys Helig Welsh legends regarding the local rock formations conceal the palace of Prince Helig ap Glanawg, said to be part of a larger drowned kingdom near Penmaenmawr, Wales.
• Lyonesse in Arthurian literature, it was the home of Tristan and is associated with the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall (an area inundated by the sea c.2500BC)^{[citation needed]}, the tale parallels the Welsh and particularly Breton legendary lost lands.^{[citation needed]}
• Agartha, in the Hollow Earth.
• Shangri-La, a fictitious valley in Tibet the idea of which may have been inspired by the myth of Shambhala
• Quivira and Cibola, also known as the Seven Cities of Gold. These were suspected somewhere in America by the Conquistadors.
• El Dorado, mythic city of gold.
• Ys, a mythical drowned city in Brittany, similar to other Celtic lost lands in Welsh and Cornish tradition. Most versions of the legend place the city in the Baie de Douarnenez.

Phantom islands[edit]

Phantom islands, as opposed to lost lands, are land masses formerly believed by cartographers to exist in the historical age, but to have been discredited as a result of expanding geographic knowledge. Terra Australis is a phantom continent. While a few phantom islands originated from literary works (an example is Ogygia from Homer's Odyssey), most phantom islands are the result of navigational errors.

In literature and philosophy[edit]

The following individuals are known for having written on the subject of lost lands (either as fiction, hypothesis, or supposed fact):

• Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Land That Time Forgot, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, At the Earth's Core)
• Geoffrey of Monmouth first mention of Avalon in his Historia Regum Britanniae
• Édouard Lalo (Le roi d'Ys)
• H. P. Lovecraft often invoked the names of lost lands of his own invention, a practice that subsequently gave birth to the Cthulhu mythos.
• J. R. R. Tolkien partially based the story of Númenor, referenced in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, on Atlantis.
• Jack Vance (Lyonesse Trilogy)

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^L. Sprague de Camp (1954). Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature. Gnome Press.
2. ^'Requiem for a Shark Dog'. December 2014.

Further reading[edit]

• L. Sprague de Camp and Willy Ley, Lands Beyond, Rinehart & Co., New York, 1952.
• L. Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature, Dover Publications, 1970.