 |
 |
 |
|
Expedition adds uncertainty to underwater relics site
Posted on Friday, June 23, 2006 (CDT) by Thoth
 Legend has it that hidden under the waves of the Atlantic Ocean was a once highly civilized state called Atlantis. On the other side of the world, a similar tale persists that an ancient city is buried deep in a lake in Yunnan, a border province in Southwest China.
But unlike the mythical tale of Atlantis, the submerged secret in Fuxian Lake near Kunming, capital city of Yunnan, may be a reality, as divers continue finding proof of its existence. Eight years ago, a local diver named Geng Wei saw a slew of large flat rocks scattered under the water 300 metres away from the eastern bank of Fuxian Lake.
"These boulders have regular shape, each with more than 1.4 square metres. Many of them are broken into half, with clear clefts," said the swarthy man, who led a large exploration into the lake recently.
The
seven-day underwater expedition that started last Friday and ends today
is a second one at the lake in the past five years. The first
exploration in 2001 was prompted after Geng submitted his discoveries
to the local government.
That venture was broadcast live by China Central Television (CCTV), and divers found a stone wall and a shard of pottery.
The shard was later proved
to date back to the Han Dynasty (BC 206BC-AD220), leading local
archaeologists to believe the underwater relics were at least 1,800
years old. Some of them even assumed that what was actually beneath the
water was Yuyuan, an ancient city that disappeared mysteriously from
historical documents.
Old books have shown that
there was once a city called Yuyuan to the north of Fuxian Lake, which
was never mentioned after the Northern and Southern Dynasties
(AD420-581).
These affirmations have led to great challenges upon new contradictory findings in the recent exploration.
Interesting signs and patterns
Last Friday, divers used an
underwater camera to show experts their latest discovery: Three
notches, each 1.2 metres long and 45 centimetres wide, on a
moss-covered square rock, which made up a shape that looked like "IY."
The notches are not
natural, therefore supporting the hypothesis that the stone relics were
once part of man-made buildings, according to Li Kunsheng, director of
the Archaeology Research Centre of Yunnan University.
"It must be a sign ancient people used to record something," added Li, who has kept his eye on the mystery for years.
More signs and patterns
were discovered on the huge underwater rocks 20 metres under the
water's surface on the following day, including some embossed signs, a
carved sign consisting of a circle and a straight line, and what looked
like a carved human face.
Liu Qingzhu, director of
the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
was particularly drawn to the parallel signs of circle and straight
line.
"If we know how this rock
was placed originally, we could better tell what this sign conveyed,"
said the archaeologist, who was also present at the first Fuxian Lake
exploration five years ago.
He explained that the sign of the circle was frequently used by ancient people to represent the sun.
"If the original sign had the circle above the line, it no doubt referred to the morning sun," Liu said.
However, two days after this discovery, divers did find "the sun" on other rocks.
Two patterns, both of
straight lines around a circle, were found on the same rock on Tuesday.
One pattern has four straight lines, while the other has eight straight
lines of different lengths, surrounding the circle.
Li said the patterns probably meant to represent the sun and its light.
The emergence of the signs, however, disproves the previous hypothesis that the relics are 1,800 years old, two experts said.
"In the Han Dynasty,
Chinese characters were already popular. Why would people bother to use
more ancient signs in their buildings instead of chiselling out
characters?" Liu questioned.
"The only explanation is that the construction was much older than we previously thought."
If that is true, the age of the relics could be about 4,000 years old.
But, the scientist was
still puzzled by his own conclusion, as "there is little possibility
that people 4,000 years ago could build such large stone constructions."
The underwater building
relics, as sonar detected, scatter in an area of 2.4 square kilometres,
more than double the size of the city of Pompeii, which was swallowed
by volcanic lava from Mount Vesuvius.
"The only ancient stone
city of that age we have found in Inner Mongolia is much smaller than
this. It is illogical that Yunnan had the same old city with a much
bigger size, let alone that the province was less civilized than the
northern area," Liu said.
"Also, ancient people in this area had no tradition of making rock buildings. They used to construct with bamboo, wood or mud."
Divers also discovered a
pattern that looked like a stretched human face on a flat rock. With
two long "eyebrows," a small "nose" and a corrugated "mouth," the
pattern looks only partially man-made, Liu said.
"It seems that someone produced it from some natural scratches," he added.
The senior archaeologist
also cast doubt on its form, saying that the "flat and
disproportionate" face may be of an animal instead of a human.
In theory, less civilized
people drew pictures to depict real things. Only in modern times did
individuals add personal imagination to portraits to express their
unique style or ideas, Liu explained.
"The pattern looks more like something from Pablo Picasso than ancient Chinese," Liu joked.
Near this rock, there was another interesting discovery of a flat rock with many holes.
There are five holes lined in a curve on one rock, about 15 to 20 centimetres apart.
"They have smooth walls and flat bottoms, suggesting they are human-made," Geng said. "The two slates could have been integral."
Though Li conjectured the holes might be related to sacrifice, Liu was reluctant to draw a conclusion.
"If they were used to hold
remains, how could people keep the ashes? If they were used to hold
flags, they could not have had different sizes," Liu said.
"I never saw anything like this before. We need more evidence to make a judgment."
An ancient city?
Divers all said that the layout of the underwater relics suggests some stone buildings had collapsed.
"Over an edge of stone
piles, the water suddenly expanded before my eyes. A collapsed but
still discernable stone staircase emerged under my body, slanting into
deep water," said Zhao Yahui, a reporter with People's Daily who tried
a 30-minute dive on the second day.
He said on every two or three rocks were signs and patterns.
There is enough evidence to prove that there are old buildings under the lake, archaeologists said.
But because preliminary
analyses about the signs and patterns oppose the previous inference
that the underwater construction was built 1,800 years ago, it could
rule out the notion that the relics were a part of Yuyuan.
Nonetheless, some local
archaeologists argued that Yunnan had a laggard civilization history
compared to hinterland, so it is still possible that Chinese characters
were not that popular in this place during that time.
Is it something older?
The stone structure
contradicts both assumptions, but supports a more wild theory put
forward by Zhang Xinning, a senior local archaeologist.
According to Zhang, the relics may only be several hundred years old, when the place "had lots of stone buildings."
"There is a question we need to ask before jumping to a conclusion," he said.
"Did the relics result from one collapse or several collapses in different time?"
Sitting right on an
earthquake-intensive belt, the Fuxian Lake area may have swallowed more
than one building more than once, Zhang said.
All these questions remain puzzles since "no cogent evidence, such as containers or instruments, were found," Geng said.
Liu said it is hard to
imagine that it was a city, because "not a single trace of human
activities was left." But he added that water flow must have flushed
some evidence somewhere else in the huge lake.
Also, to facilitate further
examination, divers have not been allowed to move the rocks until they
label them and have a specific map of their layout.
"Maybe something is hiding
beneath these rocks," said Geng, who has spent these years working
together with other local divers fixing labels and indicators on the
relics.
He said the seven-day
exploration only targets a small area of the relics, about 800 square
metres wide and less than 20 metres deep.
A robot was dispatched on the third day to explore a deeper area, but nothing new was found.
"It may take us no less
than 10 years to conduct such a huge underwater archaeological
investigation. It is far more difficult than doing on the land. More
difficult for the fact that we archaeologists cannot dive, and divers
do not have the same knowledge," Liu said.
Copyright: Xinhua
Related Articles:
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
| |
|
