Scientists Discovered a Lost City Submerged For 12000 Years

Hi, it's Katrina! Is the city of Lanka underwater? For centuries, the legendary capital of Ravana was dismissed as pure mythology, until modern satellite imagery and deep-sea divers began finding structures that shouldn't be there. But Lanka is just one chapter in a much larger, forgotten story. Today, we are investigating the lost Queen of the Andes, the Sword of Durandal, and evidence of the Romans in the Americas. We love a good mystery around here. Hope you're ready for it! The Sunken City of Lanka In the vast world of Hindu mythology, few places are as legendary as the city of Lanka. Most people assume it's just another name for modern-day Sri Lanka, but if you look at the ancient texts, the math tells a different story. The Ramayana describes Lanka as being located nearly 800 miles off the coast. That is a massive distance that puts the mythical capital far out into the deep ocean, way beyond the Sri Lanka we know today. So where was it, really? This city of legend is said to be a testament to King Ravana's bottomless pit of power. Ravana is the ten-headed demon king of Lanka from Hindu mythology. Ten heads, twenty arms, and the ability to change into any form he wanted. He represented the very essence of evil, famously going up against the greatest hero of Hindu mythology, Rama. Ravana's body was covered in scars, which he earned through battles with the gods. One scar was from the thunderbolt of Indra, another from the tusk of Airavata. He finally gained ultimate power through his devotion to the great god Brahma, becoming invincible and wielding the power of death itself. Ravana's greatest legend appears in the Ramayana, the oldest known Sanskrit epic, written around the 5th century BC. In this text, he is shown as the king of the demons on the island of Lanka, which is modern-day Sri Lanka. Ravana ruled not just over the major city, but over a vast kingdom situated on the island. The city itself was supposed to be a fortress adorned with golden palaces and architecture aligned with the cosmos. One of the places associated with Ravana and the legend of Lanka is Sigiriya, one of the most epic rock fortresses in the world. Some say Sigiriya was originally part of the mythical city, though mainstream historians doubt it. Lanka met its end in the great battle between Ravana and Rama, with Lord Hanuman setting it ablaze with his fiery tail. It was a win for good and a brutal defeat for the forces of evil. Big thank you to Fishing Clash for sponsoring today's video. Have you ever been fishing? Don't you wish you were just out there on the water, on a nice boat? But sometimes you just don't have enough vacation days, or the weather is not cooperating. In that case, play Fishing Clash, a free fishing game full of adventure and exotic places and a little bit of friendly competition. You don't always need those muddy boots or the wake-up call to have some fun. With Fishing Clash, you are traveling to these incredible scenic spots all over the world. But instead of looking for landmarks, you're looking for these massive legendary creatures in the water. It's fast, it's competitive, and honestly, it's just a great way to explore the world from your phone while you're hanging out on the couch. I'm working on my skills in Florida so I can get to the Amazon River. You can travel all over the world in the game, hitting locations I probably won't get to in person. You aren't just casting randomly either. You are constantly upgrading your rods and lures to compete against other anglers. It's fun. I'm trying to capture some of the bigger legendary fish, and there are even weekly events where we can team up. It's a great way to keep the competitive spirit alive even when you are far from the water. The graphics are also amazing. They are some of the most realistic graphics I've seen in mobile games. It actually captures that tension when you're waiting for a strike. So enjoy the view and go fishing. If you want to jump in and play with me, scan the QR code and download Fishing Clash for free. New users who use my code OriginsExplained will get a $20 value starter pack for free. So I'll see you there. And now, let's get back to it. But where is the true Lanka today? Is it simply the island of Sri Lanka with ancient sites like Sigiriya being remnants of the original glorious nation? Or could the real Lanka be under the sea, not far from the Maldives? In the Ramayana, it is plainly stated that Lanka was 100 yojanas away from mainland India. I know you're asking, what's that? Yojana is an ancient unit of measurement used in Cambodia, Thailand, and India. The unit of measurement is defined as how far an army can So it could be anywhere from 3.5 to 15 miles, all depending on the army. Some scholars believe that based on those measurements, Lanka was much farther than where Sri Lanka is today. They placed the true island of Lanka 100 miles or more to the southwest, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It could be that Lanka was sort of like Atlantis. Maybe it even was Atlantis, just known under a different name. One of the most popular theories is that Lanka is an ancient sunken landmass in the ocean near the Maldives. Whether you believe in Lanka or not, it is not the only epic city from Indian mythology said to be sitting at the bottom of the ocean. Another one is Dwarka, said to be the fabled city of Lord Krishna. According to the ancient Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, Krishna built a fortified city where This was a city of such wealth, it's hard to fathom. Everything was made of gold and diamonds and jewels. But when Krishna left earth to ascend into the spirit world, he abandoned his city to be submerged by the waves. Dwarka and all the people in it were swallowed by the sea and never seen again. Now, archaeologists are starting to suspect that Dwarka was a very real place. There is an actual ancient city called Dwarka that was founded around 1500 BC, right on the coast. Scientists have been searching for its mythical submerged portion ever since the 1930s. And do you know what archaeologists have found so far? They have discovered evidence of a legitimate ancient city in the water right off the coast of the real city of Dwarka. The first archaeological dig took place in 1963. During the excavation, underwater archaeologists found artifacts in sunken ruins. Then, between 1983 and 1990, archaeologists discovered fortified foundations. They uncovered remnants of the ancient city's walls, pillars, and an irrigation system, along with other evidence of a thriving metropolis. Experts think the ruins date as far back as 5000 years. That would be practically as old as Mesopotamia. Was it the actual city of a god? If so, I don't know how archaeologists could prove it. But the sunken ruin does appear to be the real city that the legend was built on. Just a little less glorious than what the Mahabharata describes. According to the myth, Dwarka had 900,000 palaces constructed from crystal and silver, with emeralds decorating the facades. I have to say, I don't think there is enough room for 900,000 palaces. That aspect of the myth might be a little embellished. According to the Hindu texts, Dwarka was where Krishna fought against the evil King Salva. And here's where things kind of start to get a little extraterrestrial. King Salva attacked the city with a flying machine, which a lot of people have taken to mean a UFO. In fact, the way the story unfolds in the text makes it seem as if there was an orbital bombardment. As if the craft attacked the city from orbit using space weapons. Dwarka was hit with beams of energy that resembled lightning. But what if those were actual energy beams from some sort of high-powered weapon? Hindu mythology is filled with instances just like this. It talks all about vimanas, the flying machines used by the gods. They could fly, go underwater, and even soar into the heavens. A lot of people think these vimanas may have been ancient spaceships. The question I have for you is how do we make sense of flying machines in the background of ancient India? The Indians didn't have flying machines, at least there's zero evidence of it. But there is evidence that their gods did. Could their gods have been alien visitors? Let me know what you think in the comments. The Queen of the Andes High up in the Peruvian Andes, archaeologists recently uncovered an ancient throne room. But there's a twist. The throne room didn't belong to a powerful king or emperor. Instead, experts believed it belonged to a powerful female ruler, a lady boss who reigned supreme 1,300 years ago. They think it was a woman's throne room because they have discovered images of a powerful woman on the walls. There's one image of her entwined with strange sea creatures, and another one showing a crescent moon sitting upon the throne. Everywhere you look are images of this woman with symbols of the moon, the sea, and sea animals. Experts think the woman in the images was the queen. But the queen of what? The site of the throne room is over 250 miles from the modern capital of Lima, in a high coastal valley at the ruined city of Panamarca. She was found by archaeologist Jessica Ortiz. She and her team even found wear and tear on the throne, left by whoever sat on it, moving their body around. This proves it was definitely a real throne that someone used, and often. Just like wear and tear on your office chair. As for its age, archaeologists think the throne room dates to the 7th century AD, to the height of the Moche culture of northwestern Peru. The Moche were a coastal civilization of ancient Peru, living in the valleys, up on the cliffs, and in the mountains that looked down at the sea. The Moche arrived around 200 AD and survived until 900. Unfortunately for us, they didn't leave any written records of themselves behind. All that scientists know about them comes from interpreting their archaeological ruins, and that's a lot trickier than you might think. One of the best sources of information on this enigmatic civilization is their artwork. The Moche left behind gorgeous ceramic vessels, painted murals, and all kinds of spectacular trinkets. Check out this vessel from around the 5th century. Those are seashells decorating as contours, with what looks like a shaman and a temple at the top. And are those jaguars along the edges? Through objects like this, scientists have been able to deduce a lot about their religious beliefs, their mythologies, and even daily life in the Moche kingdom. These people built great irrigation systems. They transformed the dry desert where they lived into a lush agricultural farmland. They built pyramids, performed rituals, and disappeared rather abruptly, and for reasons that no one has ever quite figured out. Now, with the discovery of this mysterious throne room, scientists are starting to wonder what the hierarchy was like. Were they a female-dominated society, or was this woman an exception? Let me know what you think in the comments. I'd love to hear! The Durandal Blade You know about Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, and of course you know the story of King Arthur's sword being pulled from the stone. But how much do you know about the legendary weapon Durandal? It is one of Europe's most mysterious artifacts that may or may not be real. Durandal first appears in ancient French literature as the Sword of Roland, a legendary warrior in stories and a real-life human in history. Roland was a mythical character but also the nephew of Emperor Charlemagne. In the medieval poem, The Song of Roland, the sword is given to Charlemagne by an angel. Not in France, but across the channel at the Vale of Moraine in England. In the poem, the angel tells Charlemagne that the golden hilt of the weapon contains one of St. Peter's teeth. It also contained the blood of Basil of Caesarea, the hair of St. Denise, and a piece of cloth from the Virgin Mary's raiment. Each of these artifacts blessed the sword with magical properties, making it unbreakable and sharper than anything else in all of creation. So what did Charlemagne do with this excellent weapon? He gifted it to his paladin, Roland. In ancient legends, a paladin was essentially the elite of the elite, the highest-ranking, most trusted warriors in a royal court. Roland then wielded the blade at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, which was a very real engagement that happened in 778. Charlemagne's army was ambushed by a massive force of Basques from Spain while moving through a mountain pass in the Pyrenees. It was right on the modern-day border between France and Spain, and not entirely unprovoked. Emperor Charlemagne had invaded the Iberian Peninsula, so the Basques attacked as retaliation. Charlemagne had destroyed the city walls of their capital city Pamplona and then fled back across the mountains into France. Roland died in this battle. It was part of one of the most dramatic last stands since the 300 Spartans. As the Franks retreated, the rear guard got cut off. But rather than cower in fear, they stood their ground and fought to the very last man. They were wiped out, but it was a valiant display. With the death of Roland, he and the paladins of Charlemagne's court were thrust into legend, becoming the quintessential knights of European lore. In fact, Charlemagne's paladins were a huge influence on the code of chivalry that came into being during the Middle Ages. And that brings me back to the Song of Roland, one of the oldest surviving works of major French literature. It was written in the 10th century, with Roland elevated from a mere soldier to a warrior wielding an angelic blade. But what weapon did Roland really have at the battle? Was it a blessed sword or ordinary steel? In the poem, Roland uses Durandal to hold off the Basque army while Charlemagne and everyone else retreats. He even sliced off the arm of the Basque king and decapitated his son. But no matter how many heads Roland removes with his mystical blade, the Basques keep coming. He ultimately realizes that he can't fight them all, so he decides to destroy the sword before it can fall into the hands of the enemy. Roland hits the sword as hard as he can against blocks of marble, but each time, Durandal cleaves the marble in two. Try as he may, he can't smash it. When Roland is mortally wounded, he hides the sword under his body and lays down to die. What happened to the sword after is left up to your imagination. To get to the truth, you need to sift through a lot of regional legends. In the southwest of France, rumor has it the real Durandal made its way into the chapel of Saint Mary's Church, only to be stolen in 1183 by Henry the Young King, eldest son of Henry II, King of England. Another legend claims that Durandal is embedded in a cliff in Roccamadour, or at least it was until 2024 when someone stole it. The mystery of this sword has many, many layers. For 1,300 years, a sword known as the French Excalibur was stuck into a rock face in the village of Roccamadour. Folklore claims the sword belonged to Roland. When he realized he was about to die in that epic battle and he couldn't break the sword, he flung it as hard as he could. It flew through the air for over 100 miles before sticking into the cliffs 30 feet above the ground in the French village, and there it remained until two years ago. On June 21st, it mysteriously vanished. The locals were furious. They still are furious. Dominique L'Enfant, the mayor of Roccamadour, said the sword belongs in the village. No one could believe that someone pulled off such a brazen theft right out in the open. To this day, the sword remains missing, and nobody even knows how they did it. The sword was stuck into a sheer rock cliff that was very hard to get to. It's also near a historic sanctuary in a pretty public place. No one knows how the crooks pulled it off, what their motivation was, or if Durandal will ever be returned. For that matter, nobody knows where the sword came from in the first place. Could it be Roland's sword blessed by an angel, or was it a weapon that someone jammed into a crack on the cliff wall many years ago? What do you think? Let me know in the comments. The Weird Mystery of the Tucson Artifacts In the American Southwest, a World War I veteran discovered artifacts covered in Latin inscriptions from 790 AD. To this day, the three artifacts remain on display at the Arizona History Museum, where people have fussed and argued over them endlessly. Are these artifacts proof that Romans arrived in North America before the Vikings and Christopher Columbus? Or is it an extremely elaborate hoax? I hope you made some popcorn because this is a story for the ages. And it all began in Southern Arizona in 1924 with veteran Charles E. Manier. Charles took his family for a drive to enjoy a picnic at Picture Rock. In this area, ancient adobe homes built from mud brick and plastered with lime are scattered all around. The lime used to plaster the walls was cooked in kilns, which were also abandoned throughout the region in the 1920s. The family ended up exploring some of these abandoned buildings. They went into an old lime kiln to poke around just for fun. And sticking out of the ground, Charles noticed a flattish metal object. The object was a lead cross 18 inches long and covered in mud. Realizing he had stumbled upon something fantastic, Charles loved the cross home, washed it, scraped the dirt off, and gasped underneath untold years of grime or inscriptions in Latin. Inscribed upon the surface was the date 790, leading him to believe that that was the year the cross was made. Charles didn't really know what to do next. It's not like he could post his find on Facebook or Instagram and ask his followers to comment what they thought it was. He had to enlist the help of a friend, local lawyer Thomas Bent. Together, Charles and Thomas returned to the abandoned kiln and conducted a full-scale search. Lo and behold, they uncovered even more stuff. By stuff, I mean swords and spearheads. These appeared to be objects from an ancient army, one not from North America. Thomas was very excited. He fully believed in his friend, and believed they had found something special, and wanted to capitalize on it. Since the abandoned kiln was on unowned land, Thomas purchased it. Then, he hired some professional academics from the University of Arizona. The academics started to excavate. Over the following months, they continued to unearth weird lead artifacts, including another inscribed cross and some more weapons. At first, it really seemed like there was something hidden in this patch of hot Arizona scrubland. But then, the academics started to get suspicious. Frank Hamilton Fowler of the Classics Department found the inscriptions on the crosses a little dubious. The Latin was sloppy and poorly done. Plus, the use of A.D. in the 790 date made no sense, because no one used Anno Domini, A.D., until the 11th century. Frank suspected that something nefarious was at work. Others were simply excited, like Andrew Ellicott Douglas, the inventor of dendrochronology. That's the fancy word for tree ring dating. Douglas was a huge deal at the University of Arizona in 1924. When he learned about these strange artifacts, he began reaching out to experts he knew, including folks over at the British Museum. The British Museum basically laughed at him. They said there is no way the artifacts were real. They outright told Andrew that the artifacts could not be anything but the work of someone living not very long ago. Andrew didn't like their response and ignored it. Instead, he spoke with geologist Clifton J. Sarle, who agreed the artifacts were legitimate. Many of the artifacts were found over three feet below the surface, meaning they weren't just dropped there yesterday. Then came Laura Coleman Ostrander, a local art teacher and passionate historian. She was approached by Thomas Bent and got to work trying to translate the inscriptions on the crosses. Over the next year, Laura slowly paced together Latin and Hebrew transcriptions from the artifacts. She, Clifton, Andrew, and Thomas were all convinced they had discovered evidence of a Roman Jewish kingdom that once lived in Arizona. Laura's deciphering of the inscriptions revealed the full story of the Roman Jewish presence in Arizona, which went something like this. In the year 775, an expedition of Roman Jews ventured across the sea and landed on the western coast of North America. They called their landing place Roman Calalus, which translates into English as an unknown land. Led by their king Theodorus, the Romans built a settlement and named it Calalus. But the Romans were not alone in this supposedly unknown land. They soon encountered the Toltesus, a group of indigenous people already living in the area. The Romans quickly became bitter enemies with the natives, resulting in a series of wars that lasted for the next 15 years or so. The inscriptions on the artifacts included a list of kings, along with a historical account of the wars between the Romans and the Toltesus. After years of fighting, Theodorus eventually perished. He was replaced by King Jacobus. Laura's decoded inscriptions claim that Jacobus rebuilt the Roman city of Calalus, which had been ransacked by the natives during the reign of Theodorus. After Jacobus came King Israel I, whom the records say ruled for 67 years. His successor, King Israel II, ruled for only six years before being killed in battle. Then came the reign of King Israel III, which was the most disastrous of all. In 880, he was banished for liberating the enemies of the Romans. He had somehow betrayed his own people, resulting in a massacre of 3,000 Romans. Their capital of Calalus was put to siege and everyone was killed. The Romans of Jewish ancestry were wiped out by this mysterious culture and their city was obliterated. For those who believed the story sounded legitimate, they thought that Toltesus was probably a reference to the Toltec people, a real group of Mesoamericans who lived in Mexico in ancient times. The believers argued that having what appeared to be clear references to a real culture was too perfect of a detail. Skeptics had a lot of their own doubts. For example, there is no historical record of the Toltec ever being that far north. Their artifacts haven't been found in Arizona, and they definitely haven't been found near where the Roman artifacts were uncovered. Besides, the Toltec didn't even become a major civilization until around 900, after the Romans had already been defeated. If Toltec people lived in Arizona, they would have left behind pyramids, temples, or structures of some kind. Just look at the ancient capital of Tula and the magnificent temple. These are the kinds of things the Toltec built. So why has nothing like it ever been found in Arizona? For more than a year after the discovery, there were no scientific papers being published about it. Scholars at the University of Arizona remained divided between believers and non-believers. It wasn't until Byron Cummings, Andrew Douglas's boss, came back from vacation that things heated up. Byron was a respected scientist whose words held weight. When he visited the site and helped excavate a sword blade locked in a natural concretion, he became convinced the objects were genuine. When he announced his support, suddenly newspapers started paying attention. The New York Times picked up the story, and things went crazy from there. The New York Times presented the claims of the scientists, but they also dedicated a section to Dr. Bashford Dean. Dean claimed the artifacts were forgeries and held no interest or value. He also presented evidence, pointing to fresh instrument marks on the objects to give them the false appearance of age. Dean claimed the figures were crude copies of real work that the artist had seen, while the weapons were childish imitations, like Gaul being written as Gaul instead of the correct Latin Gallia. This was pretty damning. That's the English word for Gallia, which was what the Romans called France before it was ever France. Meanwhile, the Arizona Daily Star published an article with a title claiming something like, if Cummings says they're genuine, they are. For some people, the headline was all that mattered. So really, not much has changed in 100 years. The scientists with the evidence was ignored, and the hot topic headlines were celebrated. Soon, though, things just became too weird. In January of 1926, the Tucson Citizen published an article about a retired cowboy. His name was Leandro Ruiz. He claimed to have met an educated Mexican living at a lime kiln with his parents in 1886. With a bit of digging, reporters at the Citizen were able to track down that educated young Mexican. It turned out he was a sculptor named Timotio Odohui. And guess what? He possessed a substantial library of classical texts in both Hebrew and Latin, the two languages inscribed on the artifacts. Timotio's father, Vicente, was forced to leave Mexico following the Franco-Mexican War. As an educated man, he brought his family library with him. The library didn't only contain books, but also heirlooms and artifacts. For about nine years, the family lived and worked at a lime kiln. But after Vicente died, his wife and son vanished, and nobody ever saw them again. With this discovery, suddenly people weren't so confident in the artifacts. It seemed the young sculptor likely created the objects based on his family heirlooms and the images from the old books. He may have created a story based on what he knew of the Romans and the local natives, and then inscribed it as best he could on the artifacts. That was the story that Laura deciphered and showed to the world. Decades later, when the sculptor's family was long gone, and the kiln they once lived in was in ruins, Charles showed up with his family and found the It would explain why Frank Fowler, the first one to wave a red flag, discovered that every single inscription on the artifacts can be found word for word in dictionaries published after 1864, dictionaries the young sculptor's father likely had in his collection. While everyone was slowly distancing themselves from the artifacts, which they realized were probably not real, do you know who stuck to his guns? Byron Cummings. That's who. He told the Tucson Citizen, I am firmer than ever in my belief that they are genuine. Byron was so adamant that he argued the whole story of the sculptor was bogus, saying there were no universities in Mexico where he could have been educated. That is obviously incorrect, because in 1551, the first university in Mexico was established. That was something like 300 years before the sculptor was born. All these years later, there has still never been any concrete evidence for who made the artifacts. If you want to see them for yourself, they are still kept at the Arizona History Museum, but not on display in the basement. You can ask to see them, but there's no guarantee the museum staff will accommodate you. Normally, I would end the story here, but this whole situation has reminded me of another artifact that also sort of maybe proves that the Romans were in Mexico. In 1933, a terracotta head was discovered amongst grave goods in the Toluca Valley. The head is identical to Roman artifacts, but it looks nothing like anything that has ever been found in the Americas. Archaeologist Romeo H. Hristov took the discovery and ran with it. He claimed the head proved that the Romans had, at the very least, interacted with Mesoamerican cultures. Romeo wasn't even involved in the discovery. He made his case in 2001 while at University of New Mexico. The find was made by José García Payón a century earlier in the floor of a pyramid structure. Alongside the head were typical Mesoamerican relics made of gold, rock crystal, turquoise, and bone. The burial itself was dated to about 1476. José didn't even publish information on the head for another 30 years, maybe because he was afraid of the repercussions or maybe he just didn't think it was important. Now, in 2026, there are a few popular theories for what the head represents. Hristov argues that a Roman ship drifted to Mesoamerican shores, leaving a gang of Romans stranded in the New World. Others suspect the head is a hoax, put in the ground on purpose to cause a fuss. To be honest though, that seems unlikely given Payón's 30 years of leaving the head sitting in a drawer. The last possible explanation is that the head was imported by an early European visitor to Mexico. Possibly even the Vikings who arrived in Canada a thousand years ago. It's possible a rogue group of Vikings or some other culture arrived with a trinket from the Roman era and lost it and somehow the trinket ended up in someone's grave. What do you think? Do you believe the Romans ever made it to the Americas? Let me know in the comments and thanks so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you next time for more of History's Mysteries. Bye!