Tsunami waves exposed remnants of lost city

26 February 2005

NewScientist.com news service

The violence of last year's tsunami uncovered remains thought to be from a 1200-year-old lost city on India's south coast.

Three structures have appeared, including a granite lion, half-buried in sand near the famous 7th-century Mahablipuram temple. The structures are about 2 metres tall and carved in the same ornate style as the temple. The waves also blasted away years of sand from a relief depicting an elephant, which is now drawing crowds.

Archaeologists believe that the worn rocks revealed by the tsunami are part of what was once an extensive port city, engulfed by the sea hundreds of years ago. A diving expedition in 2002 found extensive ruins stretching over several square kilometres submerged just offshore.

Monty Halls of the Scientific Exploration Society in Dorset, UK, who led the dives, is not surprised that these new remains have turned up. He says his team saw monuments of what looked like a lion and also an elephant's foot. "It's just a natural extension of what we found in the ocean," he says.