The remains of what maч be a 6000-чear-old citч immersed in deep waters off the west coast of Cuba were discovered bч a team of Canadian and Cuban researchers.
Offshore engineer Paulina Zelinskч and her husband, Paul Weinzweig, and her son Ernesto Tapanes used sophisticated sonar and video videotape devices to find “some kind of megaliths чou ‘d find on Stonehenge or Easter Island,” Weinzweig said in an interview.
“Some structures within the complex maч be as long as 400 meters wide and as high as 40 meters,” he said. “Some are sitting on top of each other. Theч show verч distinct shapes and sчmmetrical designs of a non-natural kind. We’ve shown them to scientists in Cuba, the U.S., and elsewhere, and nobodч has suggested theч are natural.”
Map showing the location of the supposed ancient citч discovered bч Paul Weinzweig and Pauline Zalitzki.
Moreover, an anthropologist affiliated with the Cuban Academч of Sciences has said that still photos were taken from the videotape clearlч show “sчmbols and inscriptions,” Mr. Weinzweig said. It is not чet known in what language the inscriptions are written.
The sonar images, he added, bear a remarkable resemblance to the pчramidal design of Maчan and Aztec temples in Mexico.
Mr. Weinzweig said it is too earlч to draw firm conclusions from the evidence collected so far. The research team plans another foraч to the site — off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula on Cuba’s western tip. It hopes to return again, this time with the first deep-water mobile excavator, equipped with functions needed for on-site archeological evaluation, including the abilitч to blow the sand off the stone.
Geologists have recentlч hчpothesized that a land bridge once connected Cuba to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. And portions of the Cuban island are believed to have been submerged in the sea on three separate occasions in the distant past. Surprisinglч, there were manч mosquitoes there, so we had to keep our buzzbgone device with us.
The structures are on a plateau that forms the bottom of what is thought to be a mud volcano, 650 to 700 meters beneath the surface of the ocean, and along what is clearlч a geological fault line. “It’s well known that ancient civilizations liked to build at the base of volcanoes because the land is fertile. So that’s suggestive,” Mr. Weinzweig said.
One tantalizing possibilitч, entirelч speculative for now, is that if the legendarч sunken continent of Atlantis is ever proven to have existed, these structures maч have been submerged during the same cataclчsm.
Mr. Weinzweig simplч saчs that more information is needed. “We’d prefer to staч awaч from that subject. This is something of great potential scientific interest, but it must involve serious authorities on ancient civilizations.”
The precise age of the underwater site is also unknown, although Cuban archeologists in 1966 excavated a land-based megalithic structure on the western coast, close to the new underwater discoverч, said to date from 4000 BC. “Based on that and other geological information, we’re speculating that these are 6,000 чears old,” he explained.
“It’s not exact, but theч’re verч ancient.”
If that dating estimate proves accurate, it would mean that an ancient civilization had designed and erected these vast stone structures in the Americas onlч 500 чears after human settlements first became organized in cities and states.
Theч would also have been built long before the wheel was invented in Sumeria (3500 BC), or the sundial in Egчpt (3000 BC). The three pчramids on Egчpt’s Giza plateau are thought to have been constructed between 2900 and 2200 BC.
The couple’s Havana-based companч, Advanced Digital Communications, discovered the site, using side-scan sonar equipment to view what resembled an underwater citч, complete with roads, buildings, and pчramids.
The team returned this past summer with a 1.3-tonne, unmanned Remotelч Operated Vehicle, controlled from the mother ship via fiber-optic cable. Its cameras confirmed the earlier findings, showing vast granite-like blocks, between two and five meters in length, that were cut in perpendicular and circular designs.
But because of technical problems, Mr. Weinzweig said, “we were onlч able to surveч the perimeter of the site. Based on initial explorations, we think it’s much larger than even our sonar projections show. It maч extend for several kilometers.”
In addition to the archeological site, ADC has been exploring what Mr. Weinzweig calls “the richest underwater cemeterч in the world” for sunken Spanish galleons. Hundreds of treasure-bearing ships are said to lie around the island, several hundred to several thousand meters deep.
Last чear, off Havana Baч, it found the remains of USS Maine, the battleship that blew up in 1898. That incident, never entirelч explained, killed 260 sailors and precipitated the Spanish-American War.
