Sprawled out across a portion of the northern Mojave Desert of California, in the United States, is the magnificent yet forbidding moonscape that is Death Valley. This is one of the hottest, most inhospitable places on the planet, boasting the highest ground temperature ever recorded on earth at 201 °F (93.9 °C), and in general a sun-scorched wasteland, devoid of water and pounded by relentless sun and heat. It is so inhospitable that it might as well be the surface of some remote, lifeless planet, and it is not called Death Valley for nothing. Yet, for how totally uninhabitable it may seem there have long been Native tribes living in this extreme land for thousands of years, and it some reports are to be believed there is even a mysterious lost civilization that lived under it all.

The tribe most associated with the Death Valley region is the Paiute, who like many other tribes throughout the world have their particular legends and myths about the land they inhabit. For the Paiute one of the most intriguing is that of a great underground city they call Shin-au-av, meaning “God’s Land” or “Ghost Land.” According to the lore, there was once a great chief who lost his wife to the clutches of death. Unable to cope without her, this chief took a journey to the land of spirits, during which he found himself in a vast subterranean world. In this land he was attacked by horrific monsters, which he barely managed to fend off as he retreated, finally crossing a rock bridge and coming to a peaceful land ruled by a chief called Shin-au-av.

Death Valley

This was apparently a land of lush green meadows, sweeping valleys, and dancing, happy people, and the chief who had stumbled across this magical place realized that is was a land of spirits, possibly even harboring his dead wife. He even asked if his wife was there, and one of his guides said that she indeed was, and that she would be presented to him with the caveat that he whisk her away as soon as possible without looking back. The chief was elated, but after waiting several days she did not materialize. He was about to give up but then she appeared and he did as promised, taking her by the hand and leading her across that stone bridge back to the land of the living, but he broke his pact by looking once more onto that sumptuous realm of green and his wife subsequently faded away once again. The heartbroken chief made his way back to his village, but he was never the same again, and his tale of that amazing underground domain became the stuff of legends.

Whether this fantastic fable is based in any way in reality or not, there have actually been explorers and adventurers who seem to have stumbled across this seemingly mythical place buried under the harsh hellscape of the Death Valley above, and whether connected to this legend or not there have been many who have claimed to have found something quite odd there under the parched earth. One of the earliest such accounts comes from the early 1900s, when two men named White and Thomason were said to have been hiking through Death Valley and one of them allegedly fell through the ground into an old mine shaft at a place called Wingate Pass.

It turned out that there underground was a gigantic cavern that they claim to have followed for 20 miles beneath the earth, where it penetrated out under the Panamint Mountains. According to them, this meandering, expansive cavern emptied out into a vast and ancient subterranean city, which had long since been abandoned but which still held much evidence of its past residents. White and Thomason said that they found perfectly preserved mummies wearing leather clothing and gold jewelry down there in the dank depths, as well as gold spears, a polished stone round table of some sort, golden statues, and just generally gold lying all over the place, as well as countless gemstones. Throughout all of it was an intricate lighting system that they speculated harnessed natural gases, and immense stone doors that seemed to have once been operated with elaborate mechanical systems.

The men claimed to have taken some of the treasure and relics out of there so that they could be studied, but that they had been subsequently stolen by an associate. They captured the attention of the Smithsonian Institute, and promised that they could show them where the entrance to this bizarre underground world was, but the men were unable to locate it again. Considering there is absolutely no evidence of these men’s claims, we are left to merely speculate as to how much truth any of it has.

In the 1920s there was another interesting account when a Native Guide named Tom Wilson came forward to claim that his prospector grandfather had also found some sort of underground city under Death Valley. Wilson said that his grandfather had followed a cave down into the earth, where he had come across a city of fair-skinned people living there underground, who spoke a language he could not understand and were decked out in leather clothing of some sort. This strange race had horses down there, and the whole city was lit up by some sort of lighting system he could not comprehend. Interestingly, Wilson would hear the earlier account of the explorer White and would go on to spend the rest of his life obsessively looking for the lost city without success until he passed away in 1968.

In 1947 the mysterious lost city of Death Valley captured the public imagination when a man named Howard E. Hill came forward with a rather bizarre tale of his own, which was circulated in the newspaper The San Diego Union. Hill told of a man named Dr. F. Bruce Russell and his colleague, an archeologist named Dr. Daniel S. Bovee. In 1931, Russell was claimed to have discovered a complex network of subterranean caves, which were stumbled across completely by accident while sinking for a mine shaft to make a claim on. The two men went on to explore these uncharted tunnels and found a series of spectacular caverns and catacombs down there in the gloom, which revealed some rather startling discoveries indeed.

According to the report, Russell and Bovee came across the mummified remains of three actual giants in the darkness, each measuring a purported 9 feet tall and wearing clothing that appeared to be jackets and knee length trousers made of some sort of unknown animal skin. The chamber that the giants were found in was allegedly full of relics that seemed to be some sort of mix of Egyptian and Native American design, and there were apparently hieroglyphics etched into the walls and ceiling. The men also found some sort of hall that they believed had been used for mysterious rituals, and within this hall were the remains of numerous animals presumably used for sacrifices, including both known and unknown animals, as well as the bones of extinct animals such as mammoths and even actual dinosaurs, as weird as that may seem.

Russell supposedly claimed that the remains were dated to be at least 80,000 years old, and that the whole complex meandered out into the unexplored dark for miles, with no telling what else lie within the unexplored murk. Although the two tried to get interest from the scientific community they were perhaps not surprisingly looked at with quite a bit of skepticism, with all of this talk of giant bones and dinosaur skeletons in an underground city. Yet they were apparently adamant that it was all real and that it was the discovery of the century. The two were finally able to draw some interest, but when they tried to find the entrance again they of course could not. Rather bizarrely, not long after this Dr. Russell and Bovee just suddenly vanished, and Russell’s car would supposedly be found abandoned in the desert of Death Valley several months later with no sign of its occupant.

There have been sporadic reports since of finding anomalous caverns and ruins down there in the earth below Death Valley, and we are left to wonder what it all means. Was there ever an ancient underground city here or is this all just myths and folklore? What of the findings of these explorers who have claimed to have been there? What is the significance of the mummies or the bones? It is a hard case to really get a bead on, and for now we are left to merely wonder if down in the depths below the unforgiving remote desert of Death Valley there is some ancient mysterious city lost to time.

It’s the favorite Old Testament story of fire-and-brimstone preachers who want their flocks to clean up their acts. In fact, fire and brimstone (an ancient word for ‘sulfur’) is what the Book of Genesis says rained down on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as punishment for various sins (sexual, of course – the source of ‘sodomy’). And who can forget Lot’s wife, who disobeyed an order and looked back at what was happening to Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt. Did Sodom and Gomorrah really exist? Is there some sort of natural explanation for what might have happened to them … and to poor Lot’s wife, who doesn’t even get a name in the account? A group of researchers recently found evidence that leads them to believe the fire-and-brimstone the destroyed Sodom was the result of an atmospheric meteor explosions that puts those of Tunguska and Chelyabinsk to shame. And they name names!

“That the most productive agricultural land in the region, which had supported flourishing civilizations continuously for at least 3,000 years, should suddenly relinquish, then resist, human habitation for such a long period of time has begged investigation.”

That puzzle was the inspiration for “The 3.7kaBP Middle Ghor Event: Catastrophic Termination of a Bronze Age Civilization,” a paper produced by a multidisciplinary group of scientists and presented by archaeologist Philip Silvia at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research held last week in Denver. According to The Times of Israel, Silvia revealed the results of twelve seasons of study in a 25-km (15 mile)-wide circular plain north of the Dead Sea called Middle Ghor which is where Sodom and Gomorrah were believed to have once stood. Radiocarbon dating and minerals that appeared to have been instantly crystallized by high temperatures convinced them that these were the result of a massive airburst caused by a meteor about 3,700 years ago … the time when Lot’s wife would have turned around to see the explosion and possible been incinerated.

“This paper surveys the multiple lines of evidence that collectively suggest a Tunguskalike, cosmic airburst event that obliterated civilization — including the Middle Bronze Age city-state anchored by Tall el-Hammam — in the Middle Ghor (the 25 km diameter circular plain immediately north of the Dead Sea) ca. 1700 BCE, or 3,700 years before present (3.7kaBP). Based upon the archaeological evidence, it took at least 600 years to recover sufficiently from the soil destruction and contamination before civilization could again become established in the eastern Middle Ghor.”

OK, that explains the fire-and-brimstone, but does it prove that this meteor destroyed the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?

There are biblical references to “ha-kikkar,” which means “the plain,” and translations of Genesis refer to the rain of “burning sulfur” destroying “those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities — and also the vegetation in the land.” Silvia and co-author Dr. Steven Collins write:

“The physical evidence from Tall el-Hammam and neighboring sites exhibit signs of a highly destructive concussive and thermal event that one might expect from what is described in Genesis 19. The destruction not only of Tall el-Hammam (Sodom), but also its neighbors (Gomorrah and the other cities of the plain) was most likely caused by a meteoritic airburst event.”

What about Lot’s wife and all the sinning? You’ll have to wait for another study.

It looks like Peru no longer has a lock on the title of South America’s hot spot for elongated skull (not yet recognized by the Guinness folks). Archeologists have discovered 500-year-old tombs in a Bolivian quarry that contain the remains of individuals whose civilization was conquered by the Incas … remains which include the elongated skulls of people believed to have been high on the local social ladder – the only ladder safe enough to climb with those big heads.

https://youtu.be/s-RLGi6XuvQ

“(An) unprecedented discovery.”

Bolivian Minister of Culture Wilma Alanoca announced last week the discovery of a cemetery three months near the town of Viacha in Bolivia’s Altiplano (the high plains of the Andes) 20 km (12.4 miles) from La Paz. Reuters reports that it had been kept secret until the site was secured since it showed signs of previous looting. The find was made by a mining company digging just three meters down into limestone. Upon opening the tombs carved into the rocks, the workers immediately stopped and notified the government, which sent in archeologists to determine what they had uncovered. And what they uncovered had never before been seen in Bolivia. (Pictures here.)

Archeologist Jedu Sagarnaga holds a skull as part of an archeological finding, dated approximately 500 years ago, in Mazo Cruz, near Viacha, Bolivia, November 12, 2018 ( REUTERS/David Mercado )

“There are objects that are clearly attributed to the Inca culture, and others that are not Inca, but rather Aymara.”

Indigenous Bolivians

Referring to the 30-plus funerary vessels found in the tomb, archaeologist Wanderson Esquerdo was not surprised to find artifacts of the Incas, who conquered the area in the 15th century. However, the cemetery itself belonged to the Pacajes culture, which was part of the Aymara, the indigenous people of the Andes and Altiplano regions whose descendants are still found in Bolivia. The four tombs appeared to have contained the remains of over 100 individuals, along with the vessels, jewelry and funereal bundles. The jewelry — necklaces, bracelets, hair combs and headbands – indicated the tomb was used by families of mixed levels of social status.

And then there’s the elongated skulls. The presence of the skulls means the Incas used the tomb after conquering the Aymaras and that they were at the highest social level – the one that thought elongated skulls were a sign of superiority. Believe it or not, the archeologists are less interested in the skulls than in the remains and artifacts of the Amaras, a culture little is known about.

“(It’s a period when) many of the cultural patterns that today deeply mark the customs of the ethnic groups of present-day Bolivia were shaped. Although they have been the subject of some research, they are not known in depth, so the new findings will help fill the gaps of that era.”

Inca expansion

Roberto Lleras , professor at the Externado de Colombia University, will be studying the remains and artifacts after they’re analyzed at an archeological center, and then returned to a museum in Viacha. Per Bolivian law, the town is responsible for preserving both the artifacts and the historical site.

Are elongated skulls becoming so common in South America that they generate little interest and no shouts of “Aliens!”? That’s probably a good thing … although it certainly wasn’t for the poor little rich kids whose parents wanted bumper stickers on their carts that read “My child is an honor student at Big Skull Academy.”

It’s time for another edition of “Myth or History?” Today’s question: is the ancient lost city of Tenea, said to have been built by Trojan prisoners of war freed by the Greeks after the Trojan War, myth or history? If you said “Myth,” you were right … until this week. That’s when the Greek Culture Ministry announced that archaeologists “located the first tangible remains” of the real lost city of Tenea. No word on whether they found Helen, her husband King Menelaus or Paris of Troy.

Helen of Troy

“The town called Tenea is just about sixty stades distant. The inhabitants say that they are Trojans who were taken prisoners in Tenedos by the Greeks, and were permitted by Agamemnon to dwell in their present home. For this reason they honor Apollo more than any other god.”
— Pausanias, “Description of Greece”

The historical authenticity of the Trojan War, a Homeric tale of both gods and men, has long been debated. Tenea was mention by both Pausanias, a Greek traveler and geographer in the second century CE, and Strabo, a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian in the first century CE. Tenea was said to be south of the ancient port of Corinth and succeeded as a settlement, eventually developing its own government. It was said to have been spared by the Romans when they destroyed Corinth in 146 BCE, but it eventually collapsed on its own and disappeared, establishing itself as a “lost city.”

While artifacts had been found, including a statue dating to 550 BCE of a youth that was named Kouros of Tenea, none offered conclusive proof of the existence of the lost city. Despite that, archaeologist Elena Korka formed a team and began digging where she thought Tenea would be, encouraged by pottery fragments and a sarcophagus containing the remains of a high-society woman from about the right time period. In 2017, they found tombs of wealthy individuals, gilded bronze leaves, a golden ring, precious stones, gold and bronze coins, vases and a series of decorated lamps. Not proof yet, but they were getting close.

Kouros of Tenea

This week, Korka, who is now Greece’s director of antiquities and cultural heritage, unveiled stone walls with door openings and floors that were definitely from the lost city of Tenea.

“It is significant that the remnants of the city, the paved roads, the architectural structure, came to light. We’ve found evidence of life and death … and all this is just a small part of the history of the place.”

For being prisoners of war, the founders of Tenea did surprisingly well. The coins were indicators of economic success and the items in the tombs identified their owners as wealthy individuals. The find was not just of a few buildings or tombs either.

“These buildings date from early Hellenistic to late Roman times and appear to be expanding in all directions. Research will continue in these areas in the next period. Building remains reveal continuous interventions and remodeling due to their long period of use.”

As always, more excavations will occur. The archeologists are fortunate to have the help of residents of the modern city who have formed the ” Friends of Ancient Tenea.”

The lost mythical city of Tenea has been found, proving it to be real. Now let’s find that giant wooden horse.

There are few places in this world as permeated and imbued with wonder and mystery as ancient Egypt. This is the land that gave us the mysteries of the pyramids and various other legendary enigmas that stretch back into the furthest reaches of history and the murky depths of time. Of all of these various mysteries, one that truly stands out is that of a mystical curse, to have been bestowed upon the tombs of the ancient kings, and which has gone on to become a popular legend and point of speculation in the world of the paranormal. Here we have a bit of mystery, adventure, and exploration, mixed with deadly magical evil. This is the curse of King Tut.

The rulers of ancient Egypt, known as the Pharaohs, were seen by their people as actual gods, and this reverence for them continued on even when their earthly form inevitably died. In order to make sure that the beloved kings could more effectively make the journey to the afterlife, the kings were carefully and meticulously embalmed and mummified, preserving the body forevermore, after which they were ensconced within extravagant, ornate tombs. These tombs were loaded with vast riches, countless valuable artifacts, and often livestock or servants who were sealed away in the perpetual dark along with their master, and everything else the Pharaoh would possibly need in order to live on in the next realm.

The tombs themselves were carefully sealed in order to keep away would be grave robbers, sometimes booby trapped as well or containing numerous false doorways or labyrinthine passages that led to nowhere in order t sow confusion, and in some cases the entrances to the tombs were inscribed with powerful curses for the purpose of bringing down strife, misfortune, and death upon any who would dare defile the final resting places of the Pharaohs. Many of these curses are quite ominous and threatening indeed, such as the one carved into the stone of the the tomb of Khentika Ikhekhi, of the 9th and 10th dynasty, which reads, “As for all men who shall enter this my tomb… impure… there will be judgment… an end shall be made for him… I shall seize his neck like a bird… I shall cast the fear of myself into him. As for him who shall destroy this inscription: He shall not reach his home. He shall not embrace his children. He shall not see success.” This was rather common for such curses, and they seem for the most part to have been something not to trifle with.

Howard Carter

Rumors of the “Curse of the Pharaohs,” as well as the ancient secrets of Egypt itself, gained great interest and popularity in the West during the 19th and 20th centuries, mingling with the romantic allure of this far away exotic land to imbue it with a sense of dark magic and legend. Regardless of the curses supposedly hanging over these tombs, grave robbers had still managed to loot many of these sacred places, stealing the treasure and priceless relics contained within, proving to be a bane for the numerous European adventurers and archeologists who began pouring into the region looking for intact, untouched tombs and ancient treasure for them to study, but mostly finding ones that had long ago been pillaged and gutted of teir valuables. Nevertheless, this was an age of real life Indiana Jones adventures, as the outsiders spread out under the desert sun and these scorched lands to look for ancient secrets buried out in the sands.

One of the adventurers who made it to this faraway land of Egyptian kings and their mysterious tombs was a British archeologist by the name of Howard Carter, who was in particular obsessed with locating the lost tomb of the great King Tutankhamun, commonly referred to as simply King Tut. In life, Tutankhamun had been the ruler of all of Egypt from 1332 B.C, taking over the role from his father, Pharaoh Akhenaten, at the tender age of just 9 years old, giving him the nickname The Great Boy King, and he made sweeping changes under his short but illustrious rule. King Tut would die under mysterious circumstances at the age of 19, after which there were a great many efforts by successrs to actually physically remove him from the face of history by erasing his name from all records. Obviously this did not work, and King Tutankhamun would later go on to become one of the most famous of all Pharaohs, partly due to the fact that his mysterious lost tomb had never been found and partly due to the efforts of Carter and his team, as well as the ominous rumors of a curse that would follow.

Carter came to Egypt in the 1890s with the backing of a Lord Carnarvon, who also just so happened to have been an avid amateur Egyptologist who believed that not only was King Tut’s tomb out there to be discovered, but that it was one of the few such tombs remaining that was still sealed and undefiled. Carter spent years scouring the desert looking for the tomb without success, and Lord Carnarvon almost called the whole thing off after sinking so much money into endless expeditions that failed to produce any results. Just when it seemed that Carnarvon was going to give up and pull his funding, Carter managed to stumble across what they had been looking for in November of 1922, after accidentally discovering a series of deep cut steps leading down into the earth right up beside a pyramid. They followed these steps by digging deeper and deeper into the earth, uncovering more steps as they went into the gloom, until they came to an inscription marking the sealed entrance of Tutankhamen’s tomb.

At the time is was a marvelous and groundbreaking discovery, an ancient Pharaoh’s tomb that was actually still for the most part intact and free of any looting. The possibilities for what lie beyond that inscrutable thick stone slab were endless, and Carter immediately sent for Lord Carnarvon to come join him at the dig for the purpose of penetrating this long sealed place hidden away from human eyes for millennia. That very same night there would be the first in what would be a long line of oddness when Carter was told by a panicked servant that a cobra had broken into the cage of the canary that the explorer had been using to gauge the safety of the air in the tomb and had eaten the bird. The servant took this to be a dire warning from beyond the grave, and allegedly told Carter, “That is the Pharoh’s servant and he has sent it to kill the bird for leading you to the tomb! You must not disturb Pharoh Tutankhamun’s peace!”

As spooky as all of this was, Carter was a man of science, and did not put much stock in this superstitious nonsense. He had the servant dismissed and awaited the arrival of Lord Carnarvon, while the media began to work itself into a fervor over the discovery of this long lost and very much intact tomb that had been there sitting in the dark for thousands of years. On the day that the tomb was opened, Carter began by poking a small hole through the entrance, through which he peered by candlelight, the first eyes to meet what lie within for millennia, the first light to hit it, and stated that he could see “wonderful, wonderful things.”

Indeed, as they pushed into the inner sanctum, their thirst for discovery overriding any talk of ancient nefarious curses, one very vocal proponent of the curse was the novelist Marie Corelli, who lamented, “the most dire punishment follows any rash intruder into a sealed tomb.” These warnings were drowned out in the celebratory fanfare, and as the explorers pushed into the murk of the actual burial chamber they uncovered a treasure trove of findings, including religious objects, wealth, gold, paintings, statues, scrolls, and a gold encrusted sarcophagus containing the mummified remains of King Tutankhamen himself. According to the lore, there was also allegedly found a stone tablet inscribed with a curse, which simply read “Death shall come on swift wings to him who disturbs the peace of the King.” Carter would later deny that any such tablet had been found, but the strange phenomena that would orbit the discovery from then on would speak for itself.

One of the first victims of the “Curse of King Tut” would be Lord Carnarvon, who was bitten by a mosquito on his cheek not long after the discovery and would subsequently cut the bite while shaving. Bizarrely, the cut would become hellaciously infected and he would go on to die of acute blood poisoning. Oddly, it was allegedly to be found that the body of King Tut displayed a similar wound upon the cheek, in precisely the same spot as Carnarvon’s ultimately lethal injury. His death really catapulted the talk of ancient curses into the spotlight, and before long there was much gossip on the awakening of a sinister curse that should have stayed buried down there beneath the sand forevermore. It was all further fueled by a statement from Sherlock Holmes author Conan O’Doyle, who speculated that the death had been caused by elemental spirits tasked with guarding the tomb. Other rumors that would spring up to reinforce this are that Lord Carnarvon’s dog let out a howl before dying at the same time, as well as the story that the power in Cairo temporarily went out when the Lord died.

Another rather notorious aspect of the King Tut curse comes in the form of a small golden scarab bracelet that had been found in the burial chamber attached to the mummified hand and had been presented to a Sir Bruce Ingham. The bracelet apparently had born the sinister inscription, “Cursed be he who moves my body, to him shall come fire, water and pestilence,” and sure enough Ingram’s house is said to have burnt down under mysterious circumstances shortly after receiving it. In the meantime, Carter, who did not believe one iota in any sort of supernatural curse, did claim to have seen the presence of a type of jackal similar to the same type depicted in the Anubis, roaming about a region of the desert where they had not been seen for decades.

Whether Carter believed any of this or not, the string of deaths concerning those who had been involved with the discovery of King Tut’s tomb would continue. Prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey of Egypt was shot dead by his wife in 1923, Sir Archibald Douglas Reid, who had helped to X-ray the mummy, died under mysterious circumstances in 1924. George Jay Gould I, a visitor to the tomb, died in 1923 after developing a mystery fever, Sir Lee Stack, Governor-General of Sudan, died after an assassination in 1924, Arthur Mace, of Carter’s excavation team, died of arsenic poisoning in 1928, another died in a horrific accident, Carter’s secretary Richard Bethell was suffocated in his bed in 1929, Bethell’s father committed suicide in 1930, and a Lord Westbury killed himself by jumping from the roof of his home. Indeed, by 1935 there was a total of 21 deaths supposedly linked to the relentless “Curse of King Tut,” and Carter himself would die of lymphoma in 1939 at the age of 64, funnily enough after long adamantly dismissing all talk of curses surrounding the tomb.

The suspicious number of deaths congregating around this “cursed” tomb and others like it have been cause for a good amount of speculation over the years. One is that the toxins and chemicals used in the embalming process might become concentrated enough in these sealed, confined spaces to produce dire health problems down the line. There is even the idea that the curse was caused by some form of illness triggered by a type of fungus commonly called “black mold” (Aspergillus niger), or something similar, which can cause all sorts of health issues ranging from fever to diminished immune systems, organ failure, and much worse, although it is hard to reconcile some of the deaths here with the effects of a fungus.

Of course there is a lot of skepticism pointed at the talk of a curse. When the tomb was opened there were many people present, most of whom went on to live long and healthy lives, and even the ones who died are not beyond what would be expected, After all, several of them already had health problems, and of course someone is going to eventually die. It has been pointed out that there is nothing particularly statistically anomalous about the deaths revolving around King Tut’s tomb, so perhaps the media talk of diabolical ancient curses has just managed to color the deaths that did happen and cast them in a more sinister light? It is hard to say. It all fits into a similar trend with other cursed placs and items, in that it is difficult to tell if this is all freaky coincidence or if there is something truly paranormal going on. Whatever the case may be, the curse of King Tut’s tomb has gone on to become almost legendary, and it remains a most curious historical oddity and companion to an era of discovery and adventure.

{ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }

It’s time for another edition of “Fiction or fact?” Today’s subject: Atlantis, Plato’s creation that has spawned more interest, arguments, explorations and movies than any other mythical city. While the needle has often crept away from “fiction,” it returns to it as more investigation yields less evidence. Which way will the needle move as we look at the latest theory that Atlantis lies not in the Atlantic but in a Spanish swamp?

“It is unique, nowhere in our world is there anything resembling this, and the structures match exactly Plato’s dimensions with no deviation. It is absolutely spot on.”

“It,” according to maritime historian Tim Akers of the Merlin Burrows private satellite imaging company, is Doñana National Park, a swampy preserve in Andalusia in southern Spain, where new images taken of the area show what Akers and others claim are the remains of an ancient city that clearly resemble the layout of Atlantis as described by Plato. Using the images, they’ve identified evidence of a massive harbor wall Plato estimated to be 5.5 miles long that collapsed under the pressure of the water that flooded Atlantis into mythological extinction. Those images are  shown in his interview with The Daily Mail (see them here).

“We filmed clear evidence and collected samples that were analyzed scientifically in a laboratory in Modena, Italy, which is used to study ancient Roman finds.”

Google map location of Donana National Park

The images also led Akers and Merlin Burrows archeologists to spots where they took samples from the wall area which the report from the Modena Materials Analysis Laboratory claimed to find evidence that …

“The harbour wall seems to have had a coating that prevented barnacle growth, like modern Teflon. That requires highly advanced construction technologies and knowledge of chemistry.”

Samples from remains of pillars showed more …

“These structures contain binders, like calcite. The presence of mica, potassium, and other trace minerals show proof of artificial mixing of materials, so the samples we have tested are made from an ancient, prehistoric concrete.”

The minerals and the design led them to claim that …

“…we’re talking about a civilisation with very advanced technology.”

But is this enough proof to say with confidence that this is Atlantis? Ingenio seems to think so. Ingenio Films is a film and documentary company that has partnered with Merlin Burrows to produce “Atlantica” which its PR team excitedly describes:

“ATLANTICA” is the first in the ATLANTICA series, and in this two hour film, we document and identify every single item that Plato described, using years of research, and extraordinary technologies. The focus of this first installation in the Atlantica Series is to identify, beyond any doubt, that this discovery is indeed ATLANTIS!! In our complex discovery of Atlantis, we have involved every available science and technique along the way, in order to show the FACTS, for which our team has included a multi disciplinary set of experts, sciences, technologies, and academia.”

They claim the film will show “the Temple of Poseidon, the vast Harbor Front cities of Poseida, the massive Harbor Wall, the Inland Sea, and most importantly… the CONCENTRIC ISLANDS themselves!!”

Looking for Atlantis in Doñana National Park

Those are bold claims about the Doñana National Park wetlands and a 100-mile surrounding area stretching from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean which others have also claimed could be the location of Atlantis – albeit without Ingenio’s enthusiasm and confidence. Akers is a bit more reserved:

“We only present the facts and try not to delve into speculation. What is unique in our presentation is all of this material has never been seen before.”

Atlantis: fact or fiction? When this new documentary is finally released, which way will the needle move?