Exclusive: India’s Discovery Of A Lost Underwater “city” .

Off the coast of western India, ruins of what many consider to be a vanished ancient civilization have been found.

In the Gulf of Khambhat, formerly known as the Gulf of Cambay, a huge city that is said to be more than five miles (8 km) long and two miles (3 km) wide was found 36 meters (120 ft) below the surface.

The finding, whichh was made by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) back in December 2000, is most fascinating because it has the potential to completely alter human history as we know it.

But even after the historic discovery more than 20 years ago, researchers can’t agree on the date and significance of the archeological site, which is now known as the Gulf of Khambhat cultural complex.

By coincidence, NIOT discovered the city-like buildings while conducting regular pollution surveys in the area.The group located enormous geometrical structures on the seafloor using sonar technology.

According to a BBC News story at the time, artifacts found at the site included human bones and teeth, sculptures, jewelry, ceramics, and wall fragments. Carbon dating revealed the age of these artifacts to be almost 9,500 years.When the ruins were discovered on May 19, 2001, India’s then-minister of science and technology, Murli Manohar Joshi, claimed that they belonged to a prehistoric civilization.

This would have been even earlier than the Indus Valley Civilization of the Bronze Age (also called the Harappan), which is one of the three earliest civilizations in the world, along with Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.

It is the earliest known urban culture on the Indian subcontinent.Stated differently, it appeared that this finding would significantly alter our understanding of the ancient world.