Visiting Underwater Civilizations

This image was my screen saver for a couple of years on my work computer.  It garnered a few questions from my non-diving colleagues like “is that a real place?”  I explained, “no, but it is sure a place I would like to explore.”  The image looks like the ruin of an underwater coliseum or arena, complete with a statue the deity that protected the site.  

If you have ever seen Mysterious Island, the 1961 movie based on Jules Verne’s book, you may recall the “walking tour” that the crew took of the ruins of the underwater city, that at one time hosted a very advanced civilization.  These types of excursions are the stuff that many scuba divers daydream about, much to the consternation of our bosses.

Of course, the grand prize of all underwater civilizations waiting to be discovered is Atlantis.  I am reading a novel by David Gibbons, “Atlantis” that describes the discovery and exploration of the submerged civilization.  The exploration team led by marine archaeologist, Jack Howard, must move quickly yet cautiously to keep the secrets of the lost city from falling into the wrong hands.  It is a plot that is familiar to many readers of “Lost Civilization” stories dating back to a time when submerged cities sparked the imagination of those who sought adventure. 

Underwater sites that spark the imagination do exist around the world.  A wonderful website, Atlas Obscura, https://www.atlasobscura.com catalogs some of them.  

In some cases, natural formations and topography hint at submerged, human-made sites.   For example, the Bimini Road in the Bahamas (conjectured by some to be part of the Atlantis road system) or, perhaps, the pyramid-like structure of Yanaguni-jima Kaitei Chikei  in Japan.

The Sunken Pirate City at Port Royal, Jamaica is one location that is quite real.  The port had been a notorious center of piracy, and for a time one of the largest European cities in the “New World” when on June 7, 1692 when an earthquake and resulting tsunami submerged 33 acres of the city.  Today, the remains of the submerged section of the city is being explored and excavated by marine archaeologists. 

Matt Russell, with whom I worked on projects with at Channel Islands National Park, worked on the excavation of Port Royal while at East Carolina University.  Matt and I had been dive buddies when he was an undergraduate at UC Santa Barbara.  I recall attending an evening lecture with Matt to hear Dr. Robert Ballard, leader of the expedition that located the ruins of the US nuclear submarine USS Scorpion before moving on to find the HMS Titanic.  We also attended a lecture at the old Getty Museum in Malibu (before it moved to its present location) by Dr. George Bass, considered by many to be the father of marine archaeology.  Matt and I worked together through the UCSB Marine Science Institute’s Ocean and Coastal Policy Center to put on a public workshop on California shipwreck preservation in the late 1980s.  

While taking classes at UCSB, he was advised by an eminent archaeologist that “there are no jobs in marine archaeology.”  Since then, Matt’s career has debunked that statement.  He worked mapping shipwrecks as a volunteer and Channel Islands National Park, surveyed a stranded lumber schooner on San Miquel Island as part of his master’s thesis, and went on to earn a doctorate at UC Berkeley.  Along the way, he worked for many years in the National Park Service’s Submerged Cultural Resources Unit in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on projects such as raising and documenting the Confederate submarine Hunley and doing assessments of the USS Arizona at Pearl Habor.  While I lost touch with him a few years ago, I heard a few months ago that he now works as a consulting archaeologist in the private sector.