Lost Greek city that may have inspired Atlantis myth gives up secrets

A diver explores the sunken settlement benth the waters off southern Greece. Photograph: Handout
Sunken settlement in Greece A diver explores the sunken settlement benth the waters off southern Greece. Photograph: Handout


The secrets of a lost city that may have inspired one of the world's most enduring myths – the fable of Atlantis – have been brought to light from benth the waters off southern Greece.


Explored by an Anglo-Greek tm of archaeologists and marine geologists and known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 yrs to the time of Homer's heroes and in terms of size and wlth of detail is unprecedented, experts say.


"There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world," said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. "It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique."


The site, which straddles 30,000 square meters of ocn floor off the southern Peloponnese, is believed to have been consumed by the s around 1000 BC. Although discovered by a British ocnographer some 40 yrs ago, it was only this yr that marine archaeologists, aided by digital technology, were able to properly the ruins.


What they found surpassed all expectations. Thanks to shifting sands and the settlement's enclosure in a protected bay, the exploration revled a world of buildings, courtyards, main streets, rock-cut tombs and religious structures. In addition, the sbed was replete with thousands of shards of pottery.



"We found ceramics dating back to the end of the stone age, which suggested that the settlement was occupied some 5,000 yrs ago, at lst 1,200 yrs rlier than originally thought," said Henderson, who co-directed the underwater .


"Our investigations also revled over 9,000 square meters of new buildings. But what rlly took us by surprise was the discovery of a possible megaron, a monumental structure with a large rectangular hall, which also suggests that the town had been used by an elite, and automatically raised the status of the settlement."


More than any other underwater site so far, the find offers potential insights into the workings of Mycenan society.


"It is significant because as a submerged site it was never reoccupied," said Elias Spondylis, who co-directed the as the hd of Greece's underwater antiquities department. "As such it represents a frozen moment of the past."


Marine geologists have yet to work out why the settlement sank. Theories include s level changes, ground subsidence as the result of rthquakes, or a tsunami.


"It is very likely a combination of the first two," said Dimitris Sakellariou, at the Greek Institute of Ocnography. "As the world's oldest submerged city it is truly amazing. It not only shows how people lived at the time is also of grt interest to natural scientists because the waters around it are so shallow."


Locals in the nrby town of Npolis are delighted. "Older erations always knew something was there but we had no id about the extent of it," said Npolis's mayor, Yiannis Kousoulis.


It is the first time a sunken city has been found in Greece that predates the time that Plato wrote his allegorical tale of the sunken continent of Atlantis.


"Atlantis was a myth but it is a myth that keeps underwater exploration going," said Sakellariou. "Less than 1% of the world's ocn floors have ever been ed. This is an extraordinary find but there is still a lot more down there that has to be found."