Sunken City Found in Peru As Other Discoveries Abound

The indigenous people of Bolivia?s highlands have legends of a lost underwater city called Wanaku. It existed on a mysterious island in Lake Titicaca, the world?s highest lake, and had a hidden entrance to underground passageways that had been built by the Incas. Now those legends may be coming true.

Explorers have made 250 dives in the area and discovered a 2,300-foot-long road, now under water. At the end of the road they found the remains of a 660-foot-wide stone temple that is 65 to 100 feet below the surface of the water. They also discovered a terrace, a 2,600-foot-long wall, a stone anchor, vases and bones from animals that might have been sacrificed. The ruins date from 1,000 to 1,500 years ago.

The ruins lie underwater near the Island of the Sun, where legends say that the Inca dynasty began. The legendary passageways have yet to be found. ?The underground passageways were reputed to link many parts of the Incan Empire with the capital at Cuzco,? says head diver Stefano Castelli. ?Somebody else said he removed a stone from the bottom of the lake, and saw water going down inside the hole.?

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A three-story pyramid built 5,000 years ago has been discovered in Inner Mongolia in northern China. The pyramid looks like a trapezoidal hill from a distance and is about 90 feet long and 45 feet wide.

Seven tombs and an alter have been found on top of the pyramid, along with pottery pieces. A bone flute and a full-sized stone Goddess statue have been unearthed from one of the tombs. Archeologists hope the relics will shed light on the origins of Chinese civilization.

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In England, researchers have found evidence that steel was produced there 800 years earlier than was previously thought. Gerry McDonnell and Ivan Mack, from the University of Bradford, believe that the Saxons who lived in England more than 1,000 years ago made the same type of high-quality steel that made the Industrial Revolution possible. The steel ingots were found in the ancient buried port of Hamwic in South England.

?This turns the conventional idea about early iron-making on its head,? says McDonnell. ?It proves that blacksmiths made high-quality, clean steel a thousand years before Huntsman?s developments in Sheffield in the 1740s.?

The ancient steel would have been used for knives and other tools. ?This steel was only probably made in small quantities and was very expensive,? says McDonnell. ?When the demand for steel increased in the Middle Ages, mass production of poor quality metal forced out the higher-quality product.? It was then rediscovered in the 18th century, showing how the same inventions can be made over and over again but become important only when the time is right for their use.

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Dried-out lakes and rivers have exposed so many archeological artifacts during Florida?s 3 year drought that scientists can?t catalog them fast enough, or protect them from treasure hunters.

An ancient dugout canoe turned up recently at Lake Louisa State Park and canoes dating to prehistoric times have been found in 3 other counties as well. ?There has been such a large number of them discovered in lakes in Central and North Florida over the last several months because of the low water levels, there?s literally canoes coming out of our ears,? says Steve Martin of the Florida State Park Service.

Ryan Wheeler, of the state?s Bureau of Archeological Research, is worried that they?ll be stolen before there?s a chance to examine them. The canoe in Lake Louisa State Park, for instance, sits on an island exposed by drought and is easily reachable by curious onlookers.

Laws prohibit people from taking artifacts from state and federal property. ?We want people to come,? says Park Manager Chuck McIntire, ?but we want them to take nothing but pictures and leave with nothing but pictures.?

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In Miami, archeologists have found ancient human remains dating back 2,500 years in a downtown city park, near a mysterious stone circle believed to have been used as a ceremonial site by the now-extinct Tequesta Indians. Test holes dug in Bricknell Park have exposed the bones of at least 12 people. Archeologist Bob Carr says the remains span 1,000 years, from 500 BC to 500 AD.

?It?s an astonishing development,? says Carr. ?This appears to be the selected mortuary for the Tequesta town on the south side of the Miami River. These were the people who were using the Miami Circle.? He feels that the fact that only 41 small holes were dug but so many remains were found means that there could be between 50 and 100 bodies buried there.

Gotham Partners of New York has withdrawn their plans to build a high-rise building on the site. ?These remains should be left alone. In peace,? says Patricia Wickman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. ?There is not an inch of space on this state that the ancestors of the Seminoles have not walked on, hunted on or died on.?

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In Egypt, home to some of the most wondrous archeological monuments on the earth, it has been discovered that many of the ancient temples in Karnak and Luxor are being threatened by groundwater. Scientists have determined that the lower portions of the ancient stone monuments are slowly being corroded by water that contains a very high percentage of salt. This is a result of the poorly designed water disposal system that has been constructed nearby. Most of the temples are found near farms where water collects in trenches that are used to irrigate fields.

?We will request the re-digging of the canal surrounding the temples,? says Ayamn Abd El-Hammed of the Ministry of Culture. ?This will lessen the underground water and will solve 30 percent of the problem.? They will also move several fire hydrants and public toilets in order to reduce water seepage.

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In California, researchers have used a mammoth kite to set a 6,900 pound obelisk upright. They say that this demonstrates how the ancient Egyptians may have used the wind to move massive stones in order to build the pyramids.

2 people flew the 30-foot kite, fitted with an elaborate system of pulleys, that took less than 5 minutes to raise the concrete obelisk, which had been lying flat on the ground. ?It?s a heck of a lot easier lifting it with the wind than it is pushing or pulling it,? says Maureen Clemmons, a business consultant who has spent 4 years on the project.

Clemmons says the idea for using wind power to move heavy objects came to her in 1997 after she read a magazine article speculating on how the ancient Egyptians had moved stones that weighed about 5,000 pounds each. ?I was looking at this picture, all these guys pushing, pulling, sweating, the ramps and the sand, and nothing worked,? she says. ?There had to be another way.?

She was inspired by tales of Viking ships sailing across land on log rollers, using wind power. In 1999, she brought the idea to scientists at the California Institute of Technology.

?You can lift up any weight if you provide the right kite size,? says Mory Gharib, a professor aeronautics at Caltech, who worked with Clemmons for 3 years perfecting the concept. They began practicing with a child?s kite and a foot-high toy obelisk. They have managed to lift the 6,900 pound obelisk 4 times and eventually hope to lift one weighing 20,000 pounds.

Not everyone believes it can be done. ?We just do not believe she?s got a prayer,? says Valerie Govig of Kite Lines magazine. ?It?s just not logical. It doesn?t bear the scrutiny of people who know kites.?

Experts in Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York say that the concept of kite-flying pyramid builders is ?highly unlikely.? But Clemmons maintains that ancient paintings and reliefs suggest that the Egyptians flew kites.

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