Break Open The Ouzo: A New “Atlantis” is Revealed in Greece

A new ‘possible’ site for Atlantis may have been discovered off the coast of southern Greece.  A team of archaeologists and marine geologists from Greece and England’s University of Nottingham have been working together to ‘fathom’ (sorry couldn’t resist the nautical term me hearties!) whether this underwater city, known as Pavlopetri, could have been the basis for the great myth of Atlantis. 

Dr Jon Henderson from the University of Nottingham has confirmed that the site dates back around 5,000 years which would have been when Homer was Greece’s ‘best selling author’.  It’s been a fantastic find as its size and the detail within the ruins are ‘unprecedented’ according to our experts out there in Greece.

Jon Henderson has stated that there’s ‘no doubt’ it’s the oldest ‘undersea town’ in the world.  It has remains dating way back to 2800 BC.  I know you’re all going to be sending me comments saying that this isn’t the case; that there are older undersea ’sites’, but this is the first one that is set out as a planned town.

The site takes up about 30,000 sq metres and it’s thought it was probably swallowed by the ocean around 1000 BC.  It was apparently discovered about 40 years ago by a British oceanographer but it wasn’t until now, with all our modern digital techonology, that a real dig and a dive could be undertaken to survey the whole of the site.

But it was only due to the settlement’s location in a protected bay that so much detail still remains and the current exploratory works have shown the lay-outs of courtyards and streets which themselves have revealed tombs and religious buildings as well as numerous pieces of pottery.  Our intrepid investigators also unearthed (or unsea-ed!) ceramics dating way back to the end of the stone age which is why they believe the site dates right back to around 5000 BC.

9,000 sq metres of new buildings were discovered as was a possible ‘megaron’ which (as I’ve been led to believe by these extremely knowledgeable Anglo Greek experts) was a huge structure with a large rectangular hall and would have been used by the elite.  This would of course elevate the status of the town.

It’s a really exciting find as it gives such a fantastic insight into the Mycaenae people who were around in this area of Greece at the time and who liked nothing more than a good old fisticuffs with all and sundry – being a nation of warriors rather than merchants.

Nobody so far has any idea why this wonderful town disappeared under the ocean but the most obvious causes would be due to a rise in sea level, a tsunami or an earthquake.  But whatever the reason for its demise it’s certainly caused a stir in the local town of Neapolis.

This find is the first underwater city discovered in Greece which predates the time Plato wrote about Atlantis and as our digitally equpped divers continue with their exploratory work it’s going to be interesting to hear what else is discovered down in the depths!