Researcher 'finds Atlantis'
2004-11-15 07:25
Nicosia - US researcher Robert Sarmast claimed on Sunday to have found proof that the legendary lost city of Atlantis actually existed and is located under the Mediterranean seabed between Cyprus and Syria.
His team claims to have found man-made structures located about some 1.5 kilometres below sea level and 80 kilometres off the southeast coast of Cyprus.
"Its been a long road to get to this point, but today it is all worth it. If this isn't it (Atlantis) what is?" Sarmast told a news conference from his base in the southern port city of Limassol.
After researching the whereabouts of the lost city for over a decade, Sarmast undertook an expedition to find Atlantis. Following an intensive search, he says he has found his holy grail.
"We cannot yet provide tangible proof in the form of bricks and mortar, as the artefacts are still buried under several metres of sediment, but the circumstantial and other evidence is now irrefutable," said Sarmast.
'Bring back physical proof'
"We hope that future expeditions will be able to uncover the sediment and bring back physical proof," he said, adding that extra investment of at least $250 000 was needed to raise the expedition to the next level.
In his book Discovery of Atlantis, Sarmast argued Cyprus was once part of that lost continent - at its highest peak - and said his findings matched almost perfectly every clue in Plato's description of the legendary city state.
Plato's famed account in Timaeus and Critias is the sole source of the Atlantis myth dating back to 9000 BC.
The privately-funded $200 000 expedition seeks to confound sceptics by bringing back scientific side-scan sonar data which supports evidence revealing man-made structures such as a three-kilometre wall.
Plato said an epochal flood "swallowed up" the mountainous island of Atlantis.
The US researcher argues there is scientific proof of a catastrophic flood in the entire Mediterranean basin that closed the sea off from the Atlantic.
Other theories place the lost civilisation in the South China Sea, the Azores, the Aegean or the Atlantic Ocean.
Greek mythology has it Atlantis was destroyed as punishment by Zeus for the greed and corruption that befell the city.