City Under The Sea
By Arun Ram
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010604/archaelogy.shtml
Scientists have stumbled upon the
remains of what looks like another Harappan town possibly submerged in the Gulf
of Cambay due to earthquakes
By Arun Ram
The Gulf of Cambay, known for its
unpredictably turbulent currents and tidal variations, was particularly unkind
to a small group of scientists doing a marine pollution check on board Sagar
Paschimi some 20 km off the Surat shores in the early months of 2000. The
National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) team could do nothing much but
browse through the multi-disciplinary data and samples it collected while doing
the pollution check before returning to its Chennai headquarters.
And then, they saw it. "Pebbles on an ocean
floor?", wondered NIOT Project Director Dr S. Kathiroli, Is there-or rather
was there-a river under the sea?" NIOT Director Professor M. Ravindran and
consultant S. Badrinarayan wasted no time in joining Kathiroli to analyse the
voluminous data Sagar Paschimi had collected over the months from the area.
After a thorough perusal of the acoustic images collected by using sound waves,
the NIOT team was virtually convinced that all these months they were sailing
over the remains of a Harappa-like civilisation. If unearthed, it would be the
first such archaeological find in the Gulf of Cambay.
"It was an accidental discovery," says
Ravindran. "We were doing some pollution check for a private company and
our teams were collecting routine data. And here we are with clinching evidence
of a lost settlement perhaps 6,000 years old." The NIOT contacted the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which "unofficially" agreed that
it could be a Harappan site buried under the sea owing to a series of
earthquakes.
The confirmation is yet to come, but the findings are
astounding. The acoustic images done by Side Scan Sonar, Sub-bottom Profiler and
Multi-beam Echo Sounder give a clear enough view of a number of structures which
resemble those of the Harappan age. "The Side Scan Sonar has picked up
images of several excellent geometric objects which have to be man-made,"
says Kathiroli, who spent sleepless nights on Sagar Paschimi during inclement
weather in the Gulf of Cambay.
One
of the images shows structures like tanks, some square and 40 m long, some 41 m
by 25 m. There are even steps visible on the side of the structure, suggesting
it was "the great bath", the central feature of Harappan towns. Other
striking pictures are those of a group of constructions in an area of 97 m by 24
m resembling the Acropolis of the Harappan culture and a residential settlement
spanning an area 73 m by 53 m buried under sand waves and sand ripples. There is
even an image of a 44 m-long structure resembling a temple with a pond.
The Side Scan Sonar could not have given better
photographs under the turbulent waters where sand currents make imaging
extremely difficult. "The monsoon over, we got back with more equipment
doing sub-bottom profiles of the structures," says Ravindran. "The
results were hair-raising."
The sub-bottom profiler, which penetrates deep under
the seabed to give a cross-section view, confirmed the Acropolis structure. A
similar profile of the "settlement" site showed structures with
well-designed basements. "See," Badrinarayan points his finger still
shaking with excitement, "taller structures have deeper basements. Those
old guys, I should admit, were great engineers."
The Harappan theory is strengthened by the pebbles
which NIOT had stumbled upon. Rounded pebbles suggest that one or many rivers
had run their course through the now-submerged region. That virtually every
ancient civilisation flourished on river banks adds to the validity of the NIOT
find. Moreover, S. Kalyanaraman, in his recent book on the Saraswati, says the
river had flowed into the "sagara in the Gulf of Khambat (Cambay)".
An artist's impression of how the ancient city was
located. Inset are pictures of sonar images collected by the NIOT team.
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