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Evidence of ancient city found in depths off Cuba (best article yet)
Toronto Globa and Mail ^ | 12/7/01 | MICHAEL POSNER

Posted on 12/12/2001 10:37:07 PM PST by spycatcher

A team of Canadian and Cuban researchers have discovered the remains of what may be a 6,000-year-old city submerged in deep ocean waters off the western coast of Cuba.

Using sophisticated sonar and videotape equipment, offshore engineer Paulina Zelitsky, her husband, Paul Weinzweig, and her son, Ernesto Tapanes, have found megaliths "of a kind you'd find at Stonehenge or Easter Island," Mr. Weinzweig said in an interview yesterday.

"Some structures within the complex may be as long as 400 metres wide and as high as 40 metres," he said. "Some are sitting on top of each other. They show very distinct shapes and symmetrical designs of a non-natural kind. We've shown them to scientists in Cuba, the U.S. and elsewhere, and nobody has suggested they are natural."

Moreover, an anthropologist affiliated with the Cuban Academy of Sciences has said that still photos taken from the videotape clearly show "symbols and inscriptions," Mr. Weinzweig said. It is not yet known in what language the inscriptions are written.

The sonar images, he added, bear a remarkable resemblance to the pyramidal design of Mayan and Aztec temples in Mexico.

Mr. Weinzweig said it is too early to draw firm conclusions from the evidence collected so far. The research team plans another foray to the site -- off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula on Cuba's western tip -- next month. Next summer, it hopes to return again, this time with the first deep-water mobile excavator, equipped with functions needed for on-site archeological evaluation, including the ability to blow sand off stone.

Geologists have recently hypothesized that a land bridge once connected Cuba to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. And portions of the Cuban island are believed to have been submerged in the sea on three separate occasions in the distant past.

The structures are on a plateau that forms the bottom of what is thought to be a mud volcano, 650 to 700 metres beneath the surface of the ocean and along what is clearly a geological fault line. "It's well known that ancient civilizations liked to build at the base of volcanoes, because the land is fertile. So that's suggestive," Mr. Weinzweig said.

One tantalizing possibility, entirely speculative for now, is that if the legendary sunken continent of Atlantis is ever proven to have existed, these structures may have been submerged during the same cataclysm.

Mr. Weinzweig simply says that more information is needed. "We'd prefer to stay away from that subject. This is something of great potential scientific interest, but it must involve serious authorities on ancient civilizations."

The precise age of the underwater site is also unknown, although Cuban archeologists in 1966 excavated a land-based megalithic structure on the western coast, close to the new underwater discovery, said to date from 4000 BC. "Based on that and other geological information, we're speculating that these are 6,000 years old," he explained. "It's not exact, but they're very ancient."

If that dating estimate proves accurate, it would mean that an ancient civilization had designed and erected these vast stone structures in the Americas only 500 years after human settlements first became organized in cities and states.

They would also have been built long before the wheel was invented in Sumeria (3500 BC), or the sundial in Egypt (3000 BC). The three pyramids on Egypt's Giza plateau are thought to have been constructed between 2900 and 2200 BC.

The couple's Havana-based company, Advanced Digital Communications, discovered the site in July of 2000, using side-scan sonar equipment to view what resembled an underwater city, complete with roads, buildings and pyramids.

The team returned this past summer with a 1.3-tonne, unmanned Remotely Operated Vehicle, controlled from the mother ship via fibre-optic cable. Its cameras confirmed the earlier findings, showing vast granite-like blocks, between two and five metres in length, that were cut in perpendicular and circular designs.

But because of technical problems, Mr. Weinzweig said, "we were only able to survey the perimeter of the site. Based on initial explorations, we think it's much larger than even our sonar projections show. It may extend for several kilometres."

In addition to the archeological site, ADC has been exploring what Mr. Weinzweig calls "the richest underwater cemetery in the world" for sunken Spanish galleons. Hundreds of treasure-bearing ships are said to lie around the island, several hundred to several thousand metres deep.

Last year, off Havana Bay, it found the remains of USS Maine, the battleship that blew up in 1898. That incident, never entirely explained, killed 260 sailors and precipitated the Spanish-American War.


TOPICS: Canada; Cuba; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: archaeology; atlantis; canada; catastrophism; clovis; cuba; flood; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; paulinazelitsky; paulinazelitzky; preclovis; russia; settegast; velikovsky; vikings
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To: medved
There is reason to believe that the missing oceans of Mars may been been dumped on this planet at the time of the flood

Impossible!!! That is far beyond reason!! No one could do something like that except a deity!

Oh, well, maybe, on second thought. . .

21 posted on 12/13/2001 7:52:14 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: blam
Could the Gulf Of Mexico have been isolated for a while like the Black Sea?

If you look at the Caribbean area on a map, it might look possible the islands to the east formed a blocking chain to the sea when sea level was lower. There would have been plenty of shallow areas and a lot more of it was open land. Some of the rivers that feed it would have carried a lot less water, especially the Mississippi due to the glaciation to the north. Maybe it dried out so they could build cities even below sea level of the time. This hypothesis would add a lot to Noah's Flood, especially since the area is much greater than the Black Sea. 5X or so.

22 posted on 12/13/2001 8:05:22 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: spycatcher
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...................
23 posted on 12/13/2001 8:09:21 PM PST by Cold Heat
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To: Republic of Texas
" Evidence of ancient city found in depths off Cuba (best article yet) "

It's called Havana.

LMAO!!!!

24 posted on 12/13/2001 8:12:34 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: RightWhale
Just like a Lovecraft story.

Cthulhu is Cuban?

25 posted on 12/13/2001 8:16:21 PM PST by Darth Sidious
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To: RightWhale
Yup. Check this out:

ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/GLOBE_DEM/pictures/GLOBALeb3colshade.jpg

26 posted on 12/13/2001 8:22:37 PM PST by blam
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To: LostTribe
Bump. More over here.
27 posted on 12/13/2001 8:25:24 PM PST by blam
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To: Darth Sidious
Don't read this aloud:
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH
YOG-SOTHOTH
H'EE--L'GEB
F'AI' THRODOG
UAAAH!

28 posted on 12/13/2001 8:35:16 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: blam
The image killed my old P60, but it got down to the Caribbean before it died. What I have always liked about maps that showed the continental shelf is the drainage channels at the edges that are completely submersed now. There could have been maybe three basins in the Caribbean that were candidates for drying out, besides the areas that would have above sea level anyway. Who knows what is down there? In the English Channel you can see the bottom if you are sailing, it's not deep at all, but parts of the Caribbean are very deep.
29 posted on 12/13/2001 9:03:53 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: medved
There is reason to believe that the missing oceans of Mars may been been dumped on this planet at the time of the flood but that's a longish story.

Of course, the logical rebuttal to this is that that would be about the stupidest of all possible ways to create a flood, like intentional absurdity. God doesn't need to move water around from one planet to another; he can simply make water materialize on-site any one of a thousand different ways. If you are going to posit God as the source of the flood, reason (i.e. Occam's Razor) strongly suggests that God would do it just about any way EXCEPT borrowing water from Mars and dumping it in the Earth's oceans. Only a human (or alien perhaps) would be required to go through such an idiotic feat of rote engineering. Sheesh.

30 posted on 12/13/2001 9:15:50 PM PST by tortoise
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To: RightWhale
Calm down, RW . . . it's merely the remains of an ancient Cuban Cigar factory !!! ;-))
31 posted on 12/13/2001 9:18:07 PM PST by GeekDejure
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To: tortoise
Mars is a smaller planet than Earth; get the two too close together, and the oceans of Mars could easily enough get pulled onto the larger planet.

The Flood was part and parcel of a solar-system-wide calamity.

The seven days of intense light just prior to the flood are mentioned twice within a short space in Genesis:

Gen. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;...

Gen. 7:10 "And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."

These were seven days of intense light, generated by some major cosmic event within our system.

In Isaiah 30:26, we read:

"...Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days..."

Most interpret this as meaning cramming seven days worth of light into one day. That is wrong; the reference is to the seven days prior to the flood. The reference apparently got translated out of a language which doesn't use articles.

It turns out, that the bible claims that Methuselah died in the year of the flood. It may not say so directly (if it does, I don't know where), but the ages given in Genesis 5 along with the note that the flood began in the 600'th year of Noah's life (Genesis 7:11) add up that way:

Gen. 5:25 ->

"And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years.

<i.e. he lived 969 - 187 = 782 years after Lamech's birth>

And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah...

<182 + 600 = 782 also...>

Thus we have Methusaleh dying in the year of the flood; actually seven days prior to the flood...

Again, Louis Ginzburg's seven-volume "Legends of the Jews", the largest body of Midrashim ever translated into German and English to my knowledge, expands upon the laconic tales of the OT. Midrashim (the full body of rabbinical literature) draw upon ancient sources, passed down from grey antiquity. The work is seven volumes, and about a foot thick counting all volumes.

From Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews, Vol V, page 175:

...however, Lekah, Gen. 7.4) BR 3.6 (in the week of mourning for Methuselah, God caused the primordial light to shine).... God did not wish Methuselah to die at the same time as the sinners...

The reference is, again, to Gen. 7.4, which reads:

"For yet seven days, and I shall cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights..."

The week of "God causing the primordial lights to shine" was the week of intense light before the flood.

The ancient (but historical) world knew a number of seven-day light festivals, Hanukkah, the Roman Saturnalia etc. Velikovsky claimed that all were ultimately derived from the memory of the seven days prior to the flood.

If this entire deal is a made-up story, then here is a case of the storyteller making extra work for himself with no possible benefit, the detail of the seven days of light being supposedly known amongst the population, and never included in the OT story directly.

Somehow, that doesn't figure. The seven days of intense light noted in ancient literature indicates some sort of a stellar blowout in or near our own system at the time.

32 posted on 12/14/2001 4:53:20 AM PST by medved
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To: spycatcher
thanks for the flag!
33 posted on 12/14/2001 5:36:06 AM PST by gnarledmaw
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To: blam
I remember reading somewhere that the Antilles and Lesser Antilles are all basically continental chunks. They may have subsided to a very large degree. I know that there have been wildly fluctuating sea levels. In the Dominican Republic, you can see an old shoreline that is some 50 to 75 feet higher than the present one. Either worldwide the sea level was that much higher or that there has been elevation of this island or some variation of the two. I also recall reading that during the last ice age the sea levels were much lower than now. With an increase in water as the ice age passed, the shoreline would not only rise due to higher water levels, but to subsidence caused by the weight of the water itself. If the change from ice age to a warmer climate was sufficiently rapid, the global redistribution of mass from ice to water could have had severe effects on the balance of geological forces.
34 posted on 12/14/2001 5:53:26 AM PST by aruanan
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To: RightWhale
"There could have been maybe three basins in the Caribbean that were candidates for drying out, besides the areas that would have above sea level anyway. Who knows what is down there?"

I wasn't thinking of a complete 'drying out' of the Gulf. Maybe a reduced, but stable water level. I have some 7,000 year old wood that was dredged ( pipelaying operation) up from the Santa Rosa Sound in northwest Florida. The report on this wood is that it was part of a larger coastal forest that was flooded 7,000 years ago. The wood is well preserved cypress.

35 posted on 12/14/2001 5:59:14 AM PST by blam
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To: aruanan
"Either worldwide the sea level was that much higher or that there has been elevation of this island or some variation of the two."

Some have speculated that the weight of the ice from the ice age (1-2 miles thick) caused the northern regions to subside and the southern regions to rise and that exactly the opposite occurred after the ice melted. (Southern region subsiding) This theory could explain some of these discoveries, perhaps.

36 posted on 12/14/2001 6:09:20 AM PST by blam
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To: spycatcher
Thanks for the ping! I'd give my eyeteeth to be working on that site.
37 posted on 12/14/2001 7:45:49 AM PST by Ridin' Shotgun
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To: Ridin' Shotgun
"Thanks for the ping! I'd give my eyeteeth to be working on that site."

The eye teeth bid has already been declined. The present bid is a 'right arm'. (Rumor is that they will hold out for a 'first born.') Their spokesman, Rumplestiltskin said that..... (..and I am sometimes accused of being to serious, so there!)

38 posted on 12/14/2001 8:44:09 AM PST by blam
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To: blam
South American Atlantis

By Kathy A. Svitil

The Aymara people of the Bolivian highlands have long told stories of a lost underwater city: Wanaku, the Atlantis of South America. They have whispered tales of a mysterious island in Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake, with a hidden entrance to underground passageways built by the Inca. Now researchers have found the first concrete evidence that those legends may be true.

In August, divers with the Italian firm of Akakor Geographical Exploring conducted a series of 250 dives in Titicaca's murky waters. Led by a 2300-foot-long ancient road, now under water, they found the remains of a 660-foot-long and 160-foot-wide stone temple between 65 to100 feet below the water's surface. The team also discovered a terrace, a 2600-foot-long containing wall, along with a stone anchor, vases, and bones from cameloid animals such as llama or alpaca that may have been killed in a ritual sacrifice.

The ruins lie in the waters between Bolivia's Copacabana Peninsula and Isla del Sol, home to the Temple of the Sun, where the Incan dynasty is said to have been born. They date to between 1,500 and 1,000 years ago, before the rise of the Incan Empire, when the Tiahuanaco people occupied the shores of Titicaca.

The submerged ruins may be the remains of the Aymara's legendary city, or could have been assimilated by the Inca Empire itself. "The underground passageways were reputed to link many parts of the Incan Empire with the capital at Cuzco," says head diver Stefano Castelli. "Somebody else said he removed a stone from the bottom of the lake, and saw water going down inside the hole."

39 posted on 12/14/2001 9:08:06 AM PST by blam
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To: blam
"The underground passageways were reputed to link many parts of the Incan Empire with the capital at Cuzco,"

For what purpose? Foot traffic? Laser commuications grid? Misunderstood tradition left from their Martian ancestors at 19 degrees South latitude after the oceans were transported in 7 days from Mars to earth?

40 posted on 12/14/2001 11:09:02 AM PST by RightWhale
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