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Mystery At Yonaguni: 10,000-Year-Old Pyramid & City Off The Japanese Coast?

Kingsize Wombat

Justified & Ancient
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One of the greatest mysteries in Japan is the origin and nature of underwater stone structures lying underwater off Yonaguni Island.

Japanese marine biologist Masaaki Kimura has identified ten structures off Yonaguni and a further five related structures off the main island of Okinawa.The structures include the ruins of a castle, a triumphal arch, five temples, and at least one large stadium, all of which are connected by roads and water channels and are partly shielded by what could be huge retaining walls. In total the ruins cover an area spanning 984 feet by 492 feet (300 meters by 150 meters). Also found were a triangular bath-pool structure, two post-holes, structure similar to a dance platform inscription, castle entrance gate, ditches, staircases, a turtle-shaped relief rock, terraces and a rock inscription that appears to belong to the ancient Kaida script that was a writing system in use in the Yaeyama Islands and on Yonaguni Island before the introduction of the nation’s education system in Japan.

According to Kimura, the ruins date back to at least 5,000 years, based on the dates of stalactites found inside underwater caves that he says sank with the city.


https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.c...-a-5000-year-old-underwater-pyramid-and-city/
 
Its becoming too annoying to type replies on this forum.

Then why bother?

So, you link to Brian Dunning. I don't mind him, but his line of reasoning has its limits too.

But here's what Brian has to say on the subject:
In recent years, Dr. Kimura has acknowledged that the basic structure of the Monument is probably natural, but asserts that it has been "terraformed" by humans, thus creating the specific details such as Jacques' Eyes and the roads. He has also found and identified what he believes to be quarry marks and writing. To my eye, these don't look anything like quarry marks or writing. It's not a testable claim; the analysis simply comes down to personal opinion and interpretation. But it's certainly possible.

So then - doesn't that warrant further investigation? Especially in the light of recent findings that have pushed back the time line of human migration and civilization?

It's possibly man made - that's all anyone is saying about Yonaguni.
 
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Then why bother?

So, you link to Brian Dunning. I don't mind him, but his line of reasoning has its limits too.

But here's what Brian has to say on the subject:

So then - doesn't that warrant further investigation? Especially in the light of recent findings that have pushed back the time line of human migration and civilization?

It's possibly man made - that's all anyone is saying about Yonaguni.
Because i still enjoy the discussion, even though this forum is malfunctioning more and more for me.
Even the fringe Geologist Robert Schoch doesn't find anything interesting about the site.
The point here is that the structure seems like a natural outcrop of the same geology seen on the islands. What is cited by Kimura as evidence of manipulation also looks like natural structures, and in all this time he has not produced anything to show otherwise.

Even if there is some manipulation of the site, which hasnt been demonstrated, the best case you can make is that it was used as a quarry.
Japan was inhabited around 40000 BC. Ive
Seen that Kimura gives as recent a date as 2000 years ago for the area being above surface. Thats well within written history, so where are those documents?
The area was inhabited, so was everything concentrated to this small area?
So we have what even people who would be primed to accept his claim reject as artifical structures, in a area where inhabitation is recorded predating, concurrent with, and post dating the claimed dates for the site, and had no impact on the native populations, no cultural exchange.
Compare that to Egypt. Their prescense was felt around the middle East, artifacts of theirs sent by trade, influence of their traditions exceeding their area of influence from conquest. Lots of trash and written records.
And roughly concurrent with this structure according to Kimura.
If we go further back, we have Gobleki Tepe. Much less material culture than Egypt, but unambiguously man made.
Found more recently, in the 90s, wheras working on the site since the 80s Kimura has nothing that doesnt fit well within the known geology of the islands.
 
Disclaimer: am archaeologist :)

I relish the revisiting of even what seem to me to be obviously not anything. Because questioning it is why I'm an archaeologist; it's part of my process.

OK, I'm not going to be able to see anything in this example unless it stands up and whistles dixie at me. In my paradigm it is so very obviously nothing.

Which is why I thought I'd post in appreciation of the OP and the discussion and the validation of my views and the fortean possibility that there is more to life than there seems on first, or even twentieth, inspection!

:loveu::loveu::loveu:
 
Honestly, I just posted it here because I hadn't seen any other posts on this subject.

I do appreciate everyone's input- and I'm really not committed to one view or the other. I just thought it was an interesting subject.
 
Honestly, I just posted it here because I hadn't seen any other posts on this subject.

I do appreciate everyone's input- and I'm really not committed to one view or the other. I just thought it was an interesting subject.
I like to argue, and wasn't trying forfoffensef.
But for some reason this and only this forum is bugged for me. Have to keep retyping words.
 
But for some reason this and only this forum is bugged for me. Have to keep retyping words.

I forget, have you tried the tech help forum - or messaged a mod?
 
Disclaimer: am archaeologist :) I relish the revisiting of even what seem to me to be obviously not anything. Because questioning it is why I'm an archaeologist; it's part of my process. OK, I'm not going to be able to see anything in this example unless it stands up and whistles dixie at me. In my paradigm it is so very obviously nothing. Which is why I thought I'd post in appreciation of the OP and the discussion and the validation of my views and the fortean possibility that there is more to life than there seems on first, or even twentieth, inspection!

This seems like a wise and healthy perspective. There is no harm rummaging through the bin or the out-tray and
re-searching old cases to see if you missed anything. In science I would call it a valuable path to discoveries and I'm surprised so few people choose to do so in their fields, preferring instead to take other people's findings on something uncomfortably close to faith.

I am interested in something that an archaeologist like yourself will probably know. If a structure such as Yonaguni were man-made, obviously there would be evidence. I can't imagine that much evidence of tool working of a site like that would survive underwater for a long time. Wouldn't the logical thing be to check for evidence of artifacts on and around the site? I have heard of plenty of people diving the site, but not much to suggest that they have been "hoovering for potsherds".
 
This seems like a wise and healthy perspective.

we have def not met! :oldm:

I can't imagine that much evidence of tool working of a site like that would survive underwater for a long time.

depends. Contexts without oxygen, for example, preserve organic materials. Like the Mary Rose and the Vasa? same with very dry desiccated contexts. Totally agree, it depends what was there: what there might be depends on what the "thing" is for, how it was used, what happened to it during building and flowering, and what happened during decay. You can find the ghosts of walls where people lifted the stone for their own purposes, leaving behind the evidence :)

My impression (and only that) is that organic stuff survives only if covered fairly quickly. How long has the site been as it is? if uncovered after a millennia of burial, say in the last five years? Sorry, I'm all questions and not answers lolol. Egyptian stone which has been submerged for millenia still shows tool marking. What sort of technology is required to make the "thing" if it is an artifact?

Potsherds only if they had been relevant to the site's use, or uses. So the cracked remains of a worker's wine bottle, or votive charms at religious site.

There isn't a global cabal of archaeologists planning what can and can't be looked at. I suspect that people have looked, seen it isn't a "thing" and moved on. People work on their research areas. If I'm into high medieval european monasticism then although I'm technically capable of doing a decent job, especially in non-destructive ways, at any site, I'm unlikely to seek funding and resources for an industrial revolution site in Sweden, a livestock pen near Great Zimbabwe, or a standing temple in Nepal. It is incumbent on those that see the need to deal with the problem :)
 
baby I was born to pom pom!
 
Potsherds only if they had been relevant to the site's use, or uses. So the cracked remains of a worker's wine bottle, or votive charms at religious site.

LOL, I didn't expect to be taken literally on this point. I would assume that a lot of underwater archaeology makes use of those suction filters however, hence the "hoovering" (note inverted commas).

There isn't a global cabal of archaeologists planning what can and can't be looked at.

Umm... actually the French Academy have been more successful than most in asserting the antiquity of their finds with a chauvanism against other nations' finds that flies in the face of evidence, and that has gone largely uncommented upon in broader archeological circles to my knowledge. Please treat this as an aside that has no bearing on the issue of Yonaguni however.

I suspect that people have looked, seen it isn't a "thing" and moved on.

Without advocating for the authenticity of Yonaguni (I have no dog in that fight, so to speak), I worry that I can see a situation where it might be a valid site. Consider a largely rough-worked stone construction, of vaguely neolithic construction, with poorly hewn boulders positioned into something approaching a pyramid or ziggurat, that then gets submerged for a few thousand years. Without an examination of the site for artifacts, surely a cursory examination of the stone couldn't easily detect that they were anything other than a natural formation, even of they weren't?

People work on their research areas. If I'm into high medieval European monasticism then although I'm technically capable of doing a decent job, especially in non-destructive ways, at any site, I'm unlikely to seek funding and resources for an industrial revolution site in Sweden, a livestock pen near Great Zimbabwe, or a standing temple in Nepal. It is incumbent on those that see the need to deal with the problem :)

Sounds fascinating. Have you found any pre-Columbian syphilitic European monks? I hear they are out there, and somehow they got the clap before Spanish screwed the girl who screwed the llama herder who screwed his flock who was patient zero.:doggy:
 
Put in this context, Yonaguni looks more plausible.

Agreed. The colossal stone head, around 8 pics from the bottom in that link, was discovered in the jungle on Yonaguni and does bear quite a resemblance to a similar head-like artefact at the underwater site.
 
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