But we don’t find any evidence of masonry.
Not on the first dive.
Disturbing
During the surface interval I fought down waves of nausea and the pounding in my temples, took another shot of Immigran, and felt sufficiently restored after half an hour to fall into an argument with Gaur about the U-shaped structure.
The reader will recall from chapter 9 that Gaur’s position had been rather stark when he and I had first discussed the matter a year before: the structure was large; its depth meant that it was more than 10,000 years old; archaeology knew of no culture anywhere in India capable of building such a structure 10,000 years ago; therefore either the structure was not man-made or it was not 10,000 years old.
I asked him if he’d changed his mind in any way over the intervening year and told him of the findings of Glenn Milne and his team at Durham: ‘We’ve had some geologists working with us on this project in Britain who are specializing in sea-level rise. And their computer model is quite sophisticated. It takes account of many, many different factors, including land subsidence. And they’re very confident that for these bearings, for this location, that this site would have been submerged about eleven thousand years ago. What do you make of that?’
If anything, Gaur replied, this made his chronological problems with the data even worse: ‘11,000 years ago whatever settlements there may have been here were at the Mesolithic level. And we don’t expect, we don’t have any data to suggest, that such people, Mesolithic people, can build this kind of structure.’
‘Such a large structure as this?’ I prompted.
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re saying that – presumably – on the basis of what you already know about the level of culture and civilization in this area in different periods?’
‘Yes,’ said Gaur: ‘So I think – if it is man-made – it should be around 2500 years old, maximum date. Not earlier than that, particularly in this area.’
‘And I think you’re putting the cart before the horse,’ I interjected. ‘See, obviously I’m not an archaeologist and I come at this really from the point of view of a reporter or a journalist. So my response to this structure is first of all the facts. A structure is there. It’s at 23 metres. Is it or is it not man-made? I feel the structure has to answer that question itself instead of us simply replacing what it has to say with our preconceptions about the nature of development of culture in India at this or that period. The structure should speak to us through archaeology. We should excavate it and find out really is it man-made or not. Although I must say that I personally find it very difficult to believe that nature could have deposited a structure like that there. So the question I’m coming to is this. We know that certainly 9000 years ago people were beginning to build quite large structures in some parts of India – for example level 1A at Mehrgarh in the Indus valley. Now, admittedly that’s 2000 years later than the proposed inundation date for this structure but it’s in the same general ballpark – back at the end of the Ice Age. So my point is that if people were building permanent structures at Mehrgarh in the north-west 9000 years ago, then what is the objection in principle to the possibility that people could have been building permanent structures here in the south-east 11,000 years ago on lands that were flooded?’
‘Well, because we don’t see any such structures in the archaeological record for south India or any part of India 11,000 years ago!’
‘But maybe that’s precisely what we’re seeing here, Gaur! We haven’t seen it before because it’s been underwater, but now that it’s been found surely we have to allow it to speak for itself? It seems to me that the archaeology needs to be done on the site first before we make any definite statements about the level of culture that was here 11,000 years ago.’
‘From what I have studied and from what I understand about Mehrgarh,’ Gaur replied, ‘if you go back to level 1A it was simply mud walls and they were concentrated in one area – they were living in a group and the village community started. But when we come to Poompuhur – well, if you see the U-shaped structure, it is such a big one. And it is part of a complex with other big structures spread over a wide area. So it means if human beings made this then they must have had very great technology at that time. I don’t think it can be compared with the simple mud-brick structures of Mehrgarh …’
‘In other words, if the U-shaped structure is 11,000 years old and was made by human beings it would be rather disturbing for our view of history.’
‘Yes. Obviously.’
Dive 2: impatience and haste
Martin takes over from Stefan on the camera for the second dive but Stefan comes down as well, just in case.
We all descend the buoy-line and are back at the entrance – which is oriented north. I swim south as before, heading for the curving passageway near the far end of the ‘U’ that I’d noted on the first dive and forgotten to re-examine.
Sundaresh is a metre or two behind me, still looking for his courses of masonry and I’m steaming ahead when I feel him reach out and grab my fin. He points to something that he clearly regards as noteworthy, but whether it’s because I am disoriented diving on an unfamiliar structure, or whether it’s because of the appalling visibility, or because I’m in too much of a hurry, or because of my migraine, I just don’t see what he’s showing me.
Behind us Martin doesn’t either – but he keeps shooting, recording the relevant incident in twenty-six seconds of videotape that I’m not able to review until late that evening. The first twenty-four seconds show me being impatient and hasty. The last two seconds show something that I should under no circumstances have allowed myself to miss through impatience and haste – something that I should have examined thoroughly on the spot and had filmed and photographed from every different angle.
Instant replay
26 February 2001, 15.37.02–15.37.28:
Hancock and Sundaresh swimming north-to-south, along western wall of U-shaped structure, Hancock in lead, depth approximately 22 metres. Sundaresh pauses to examine area of wall, attracts Hancock’s attention, then returns to wall.
Hancock joins Sundaresh, who points to area of interest on wall.
Hancock gives it cursory glance and seems keen to get a move on.
Camera tilts down to base of the wall, just above the surrounding sea-bed, then begins to tilt up for point-of-view shot.
Shot holds for two seconds on a narrow section of the wall about 1 metre high that is clear of growth and reveals in lower right of frame an ordered pattern of small blocks arranged in four distinct courses with the edge of a possible fifth course partially visible under marine growth. The blocks are brick-sized but irregular in cross-section and appear to be set into some kind of matrix.
Camera tilts up to top of wall, rediscovers Hancock who is swimming determinedly away, and follows …
Excursion to the mound
At this point – frustratingly still before I have reached the curving passageway that branches inside the structure at the southern end of the ‘U’ – the other divers signal us back, wanting to stick to the plan that we had all agreed in advance for this dive and that I had forgotten as soon as I hit the water. The plan is to spend most of our fairly limited bottom-time at this depth exploring a second major structure that lies close by (about 45 metres away according to Sundaresh when we had discussed the matter in Dwarka the year before).1 One of a pair of ‘mounds’ lying to the north of the U-shaped structure, it was identified during the NIO’s 1991 and 1993 seasons at Poompuhur, and Sundaresh had spoken of seeing ‘perfect cut blocks’ scattered on the sea-bed beside it.2
Bandodkar, whose word is law amongst the NIO divers, has insisted that this second dive should be limited on decompression grounds to half an hour or less – a prudent but in my view unnecessarily zealous interpretation of the nitrogen tables for the depth we are working at. I suppose it was because I was feeling rebellious about this time-limit on the whole dive that I rushed off so fast at the be
ginning to attend to my interest in the curved passageway.
Now I am rightly brought to order so that we can all proceed as a group to the second structure. I can see the point of being safety-minded in these conditions. The visibility is extremely bad – almost like being lost in an immense sandstorm but with a different texture. And although the NIO divers have previously rigged a yellow nylon rope as a guideline I still feel disoriented as I follow it. North? South? East? West? Up? Down?
Down is easy. In fact I’m so close to the sea-bed that I’m practically slithering on it and yet it gives me no points of reference because it consists of absolutely and uniformly smooth, flat and unbroken fine-grained sand. The contrast with the stony textures and the bulky solidity and complexity of the U-shaped structure could not be more pronounced.
Then we reach the ‘mound’. Like the U-shaped structure it has an isolated position in the middle of the flat plain with no slope or build-up. A lot of silt and sand has been deposited on it and around it, but there’s no doubt that its core is a massive stony pile. I can make out what seems to be the edge of a wall a metre thick and similar in general appearance to the enclosure walls around the U-shaped structure. Festooned in scorpion fish it rises to a height of about 3 metres above the sea-bed before disappearing into the larger mass of the mound behind it.
Martin shoots this scene but then signals that he is unwell and must return to the boat. Sticking to Bandodkar’s safety rules the entire group leaves the mound and makes the trek back along the rope with him until we come again to the entrance of the U-shaped structure where the buoy-line is anchored. Martin and some of the other divers then ascend. Stef, who has the camera again, follows me.
Blocks in the passageway
I’m still determined to explore that curving passageway, so I swim south as usual along the west wall. Sundaresh and Stef both keep pace.
I can see the narrow entrance to the passage coming up on my left when I notice something on the bottom to my right less than 2 metres west of the base of the wall. It looks like a small splintered tree stump protruding upwards out of the sand. But it proves to be made of badly damaged and eroded stone. Two more similar objects are near by but none of them in itself seems particularly interesting. Feeling pressured for time, I do not examine them further.
Next I’m into the passageway. Been there. Done that. I want to see where it leads to.
So I follow it all the way through this time and find myself in something like a room, very roughly defined, that seems to be free of the otherwise all-pervasive stony aggregate that so confuses the picture elsewhere on the structure.
Platform? Or enclosure? It would be a funny sort of platform that had an open-roofed room carved out in the middle of it – maybe more than one room for all I know.
For my money, therefore, this is yet another good reason to conclude that the U-shaped structure is an enclosure, that it probably has several internal walls that are presently hidden from view, that it has its main entrance to the north and at least one subsidiary entrance in the west wall, and that either through human or natural agency it has at some point been partially filled up with stony rubble.
Ah, the freedom and manoeuvrability of diving. On a whim I adjust my buoyancy by breathing in and ascend out of the ‘room’ to a point a few metres above the structure hoping to get a plan view – but once again the awful visibility defeats me and I can see almost nothing.
I drop back down and work with Stef to complete a little sequence of me looking around the ‘room’ then swim out of shot while he finishes filming inside. A moment or two later I see him emerge backwards from the curving passage, still filming, with the camera seeming to focus mainly on the floor and the lower part of the side walls.
On that footage too I will later note something else of interest that I missed in the rush and stress of the day. It’s on just eight seconds of tape.
Instant replay
26 February 2001, 15.56.33–15.56.42
Shot tracks unsteadily along floor of passage and passes across net draped over and partially obscuring change of level and possible step up in floor.
Camera ascends about a metre, shot tracks left of net and picks up a clear line of five blocks emerging from under marine growth. They are dark, almost charcoal black, and brick-sized like those seen on the first dive, but here much more regular in cross-section.
Shot wavers, returns to net, then tracks left again passing the same line of blocks which is now seen to continue to the left by at least a further six blocks, with other courses in outline above and below it, before it disappears under the heavy marine growth again.
Ascent
On the way up we do the routine five-minute stop at 5 metres to reduce our nitrogen levels. The water is very still and warm, the visibility worse than ever, and I drift in neutral buoyancy slowing my breathing, just thinking things through.
It feels strange to have been privileged to see a structure hidden from human eyes for 11,000 years.
A structure more than 7000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Egypt.
A structure for which no archaeological context exists.
A ruined net-draped structure.
A ghost in the water …
More blocks on tape
This was turning out to be a good day for Glaxo Wellcome. After the second dive I took my fourth injection of Immigran at $50 a shot. Then I had to collapse again, sprawled out like a landed fish on the wooden deck of the trawler while the pain in my head gradually dulled and withdrew – only people who suffer from severe migraines will understand the sense of relief and release that I felt as the drug did its work.
By 5.30 I was back on my feet drinking tea and chatting to Kamlesh Vora. At around the same time Martin went down for a short dive in the last of the daylight accompanied only by Gudigar in the hope of getting relatively clean, undisturbed shots of the structure.
When I later came to review these shots I found that they contained a third brief sequence showing construction blocks, this time of better quality than the previous two. The sequence is timecoded 17.36.15–17.36.29 and Martin seems to be standing on the sea-bed near the enclosure wall:
The shot starts focused on a small white shell lying on the sand then quite slowly pans across to the base of the wall and holds steady for several seconds on four distinct courses of masonry. Again the size of modern household bricks, perhaps a little larger, the blocks here are extremely regular and almost cylindrical – or cigar-shaped. The exposed sections of each course can be seen to continue horizontally over a width of approximately a dozen blocks until they either vanish out of shot or disappear beneath thicker marine growth.
Mysterious
By profession Kamlesh Vora is a geologist, not a marine archaeologist, but geology plays an increasingly important role in modern marine archaeological research and is one of several important skills necessary to distinguish whether a disputed structure is natural or man-made. Moreover, Kamlesh had been involved in the very first work that the NIO had ever done at Poompuhur way back in 1981 – long years before the 1991 and 1993 campaigns – and had carried out the initial sonar surveys on which much of the later work plan was based.
I kicked off our interview on the boat with a leading question: ‘The ocean is a big place and we see that there are some possible structures here. Have you done any kind of surveying from the surface?’
Kamlesh replied: ‘In 1981, when we started marine archaeological explorations in Tamil Nadu, we began with Poompuhur. And we scanned the sea-bed using echosounder and magnetometer. What we found interesting was that otherwise the sea-bed was flat, even and smooth as far as the echosounder was concerned. But there were a number of anomalous features scattered in the area – some a bit oblong in structure, some like pinnacles – and the echosounder showed the elevation of these features to be in the range of 2 to 5 metres above the bottom. Such outcrops and elevations are not at all to be expected from local geology and we could not comprehend h
ow they had been formed. If they are to be natural extensions of bedrock, then we should see different topography. For example, off the west coast of India we have found pinnacles or things like this because of a number of reasons, and we have collected samples and then done our investigations.’
‘And on the west coast they’re a natural extension of the rock?’
‘There are basaltic rocks,’ Kamlesh clarified, ‘which may have extensions. And we have found man-made structures underwater in the north-west like Dwarka which, as you know, have come in the last 5000 years …’
‘But the story is different here on the east coast?’
‘This is totally different because we could not give any logical explanation for them. So even during those times we considered them as anomalous.’
‘So, looking at them as a geologist, as you are, you find it surprising that these features are sticking up if they’re purely natural?’
‘Yes,’ Kamlesh replied with a shrug. ‘Only thing during that time is we didn’t have support of diving team. So we could not collect samples and do analysis of the rocks. Even now when we collect it, we could not get the proper rocks for different kinds of test, so we don’t have samples enough to go to some logical theory on that.’
‘This U-shaped structure that we’ve just been diving on,’ I asked, ‘was it identified in that survey?’