Underwater Mystery?

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Underwater Mystery?

• Lost City Beneath Lake Titicaca?

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12500 feet above sea level Max depth 982
feet. Borders Peru and Bolivia
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• Legends of lost temples, cities and treasure
  begin within years of Spanish conquest.
• Tiwanaku culture had cities on the shores of the
  lake.
• Many islands in the lake may have held religious
  significance.

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• Tiwanaku people fully capable of reaching the
  islands.
• Some may have had temples.
• Inca legend relates that the island of the moon
  is where Viracocha ordered the creation of the
  moon. Temples are present there predating the
  Inca.

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Early accounts and later research

• 1621 Story published about the Temple of the Sun
  on the Island of the Sun having been thrown in to
  the water by the Inca to prevent the Spanish from
  getting their hands on it.
• Eventually the story changed into a gold chain
  and later still into a treasure.

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• Because the lake changes its depth from time to
  time piers, causeways and walls appear and
  disappear leading to stories of sunken cities.
• 1966 Ramon Avellaneda carried out underwater
  surveys. He reported semi- circular structures
  near shore. These ruins were of Tiwanaku period.

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• Based on the 1966 research Jacque Cousteau
  organized an expedition in 1968. This revealed
  that the structures were piers and enclosures to
  protect boats from the wind.
• Carols Ponce investigated in 1973. confirmed
  presence of low walls and a few potsherds.

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• Illegal expedition by Japanese divers in 1977
  located carved stone boxes and figurines
  including puma heads. They did not reveal to
  Bolivian authorities where they had found the
  objects.
• 1980 a team of American/Bolivian filmmakers made
  claims of roads, tunnels, temples and a city
  underwater at the island of Koa.

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• Various international teams examined various
  reported sites in 1981, 1985 and 1988.
• In 1988 a legitimate Japanese expedition mapped
  several underwater features and recovered several
  stone boxes, figurines, pottery and shaped stones.

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• 1990 expedition American/Bolivian Navy mapped the
  waters around various islands.
• In addition to boxes, figurines, intact Tiwanaku
  incense burners and a gold Inca female figure
  were recovered.
• 1991 additional gold and silver items were
  recovered near Koa.

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• Gold pendant has figure of Gateway God of
  Tiwanaku. Two small gold statues of males
  (non-Inca) recovered.
• 2000 Reports were made of lost city and walls.
  The same that were earlier found to be natural.
• 2004 International expedition discovers more
  objects.

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• 2009 UTube film reports that Google Earth
  reveals entire lake filled with a city.

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• No evidence of a city, but plenty of evidence
  that natural ridges and causeways between some
  islands were intermittently exposed or submerged.
• Rituals were likely performed on these ridges
  leading to items being deposited or tossed into
  the waters in Pre Inca periods and even during
  Inca reign.

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