Atlantis? 10,000 Year Old Monolith Found Off The Coast Of Italy

Fact checked
monolith

Scientists have discovered a huge monolith at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near Italy.

The Stonehenge style monolith, found off the coast of Sicily may offer insights into ancient civilisations long lost beneath the waves.

Some interpretations of Plato’s stories of ‘Atlantis’ identify the legendary ‘lost’ island with Sicily.

Discovered by researchers who believe it was man-made around 10,000 years ago, the monolith is broken into two parts and has three holes of similar diameter along its length.  The 12-meter-long monolith “resting on the sea-floor” was located at a depth of 40 meters, in a shallow bank of the Sicilian Channel, says the report published in July.

  Youtube video by StuartJHooper

RT reports: According to the study, the site was abandoned at about 9,350 ± 200 years BP (Before Present) and the morphological evidence, underwater observations and results of petrographic analysis suggest that the monolith was made by humans.

monolith

“This discovery provides evidence for a significant Mesolithic human activity in the Sicilian Channel region.”

The scientists say the block was “cut and extracted as a single stone from the outer rectilinear ridge” which was about 300 meters to the south, “and then transported and possibly erected.

“From the size of the monolith, we may presume that it weighs about 15 tons,” the study says, adding that its function hasn’t been specified yet.

The prehistoric people were able to build the monolith as there was no sea where the Sicilian Channel is now. But then the ancient geography of the Mediterranean Basin was profoundly changed by the increase in sea level following the Last Glacial Maximum, says the study.

“This global event has led to the retreat of the coastlines, especially in lowland areas and shallow shelves, such as the Sicilian Channel.”

The scientists say that the idea that human ancestors once lived at the sea-floor of modern seas “easily fascinates and attracts our imagination” as an extensive archaeological record of early settlements still remains on the sea-floor of our continental shelves.

“Almost everything that we do know about prehistoric cultures derives from settlements that are now on land, and that were tens to hundreds of kilometers distant from the coastline when they were occupied.”

monolith
3-D perspective view of the high-resolution bathymetric map where the monolith has been discovered. No vertical exaggeration. Numbers indicate the locations of the corresponding rock samples. © sciencedirect.com

The age of the monolith dates back to the beginning of Mesolithic era (about 10,000 to 5,000 BC) and the report says that the discovery may “significantly expand our knowledge of the earliest civilizations in the Mediterranean basin and our views on technological innovation and development achieved by the Mesolithic inhabitants.”

The scientists noted that the monolith, made of a single, large block, required a cutting, extraction, transportation and installation, which undoubtedly reveals “important technical skills and great engineering.”

The study calls to abandon the belief that our ancestors lacked the knowledge, skill and technology to exploit marine resources or make sea crossings.

“The recent findings of submerged archaeology have definitively removed the idea of ‘technological primitivism’ often attributed to hunter-gatherer coastal settlers.”

monolith

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.