There is an amazing Pacific island of Ponape on the world map, where the mysterious city of Nan Madol stands. It is said that 250 million tons of basalt were used to build it, almost as much as the pyramid of Cheops.
Nan Madol is a very strange building of antiquity. Many basalt beams are much larger in volume and mass than any of the two million blocks in the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The city has long been abandoned, its once-beautiful walls are barely visible through dense mangroves.
During the Great geographical discoveries, sailors from different European countries, returning from sea voyages, told unimaginable stories about the wonders of the Pacific islands but most considered it fairy tales. So, for example, the Spanish captain Alvaro Saavedra, having arrived in 1529 from a voyage, told about the amazing island of Ponape, which is located between the Philippines and the Hawaiian archipelago. Saavedra claimed that the abandoned city, standing on the island, vaguely resembles Venice. That there are stone embankments, ruins of temples, palaces and other structures. All this was considered a figment of the imagination for another three centuries.
The first real scientific study of Nan Madol was undertaken by the German Paul Hambruch at the beginning of the 20th century. He found that there are 92 small islands in this lagoon, and all of them are of artificial origin. The channels between them teemed with electric eels. Hambruch’s expedition also counted all the stone structures in Nan Madol, 800 objects in total, along with fortress walls and port buildings. Around all the structures there is a five-meter wall of gigantic masonry.
Hambruh succeeded in proving that the city was ruled by Prince Saudeleur, who was the first in a dynasty of fifteen priest-kings. The natives told him a legend about the local goddess – the turtle Nanun-sunsan. A palace with a swimming pool was erected especially for her. Her shell was decorated with mother-of-pearl. On certain days, the priests rode the goddess in a boat along all the channels and shouted out all sorts of prophecies on her behalf. Then the turtle Nanun-sunsan was fried and solemnly eaten.
In 1958, a US scientific expedition discovered thousands of shells at the bottom of the temple pool.
Archaeological discoveries on Ponape have constantly raised a sea of unrealistic hypotheses. Some have argued that this city is nothing but the legendary Atlantis; others believed that Ponape was an outpost of the Egyptian pharaohs; still others argued that all the structures of Nan Madol were the work of aliens.
In 1946, Ponape became a US protectorate and received the status of a closed zone. During World War II, the island was occupied by the Japanese and active excavations were carried out there. And only in 1958, when US scientists got the opportunity to conduct their research in Nan Madol, many interesting things became clear. The natives said that the Japanese found a lot of things and took them out. In particular, they mentioned metal objects, sculptures and sarcophagi. Over time, the Americans became aware that the Japanese managed to find many sarcophagi made of pure platinum in the ground inside Nan Dauwas’s mausoleum. It is believed that it was excavated and taken out by the Japanese during the occupation.
American scientists lived on the island until 1986 and made numerous discoveries. They found the tombs of leaders and priests and that all the man-made islands in the lagoon are connected by a network of underground tunnels and caves. They also suggested that the city of Nan Madol flourished 12 thousand years ago!
A little later, Australian David Childress and his team found crosses and squares on underwater boulders off the coast of the island, similar to those photographed by Japanese scuba divers off Yonaguni Island.
The same explorer was the first to attach a pocket compass to one of Nan Madol’s massive basalt girders.
“The arrow began to spin like crazy, without stopping,” recalls Childress.
Even the first European colonists drew attention to the strange electromagnetic phenomena inherent in these ruins. They saw how electric discharges, fireballs ran along the walls at night. For this reason, the natives have a strict taboo against visiting Nan Madol at night. For them, these ruins are the abode of evil spirits.
In 1907, Berg, the German governor of the Marshall Islands, died from this same electrical anomaly while visiting Ponape. He did not believe the natives and stayed overnight among the ruins.
340 miles from Ponape is the island of Kosra, where you can see a similar basalt ruin called Insaru. They differ from the ruins of Nan Madol only in that at the beginning of the 20th century they were turned into quarries by European colonialists.
But this sad fact did not prevent Frank Joseph from substantiating the assumption that both Ponape and Kosra are located in that point of the Pacific Ocean, where terrible typhoons most often originate.
After all, modern science associates the occurrence of this phenomenon not only with temperature changes, but also with electromagnetic radiation, Joseph admitted that in ancient timesk Nan Madol and Insaru influenced the high layers of the atmosphere, as the HAARP installations do now. According to the scientist, they forced the emerging typhoons to rain there and lose their power, saving Atlantis from their harmful effects. Most likely, then it was a more complex complex than now. Judging by the data of radiocarbon analysis, in the 13th century, people reappeared on Ponape, but completely wild.
But the most surprising thing still remains the way in which the creators of Nan Madol were able to move the basalt blocks from the place of their extraction to the place of construction. The basalt mountains from which these blocks break off in large “sleepers” are so steep that the members of the film crew had to use all possible points of support when ascending, and especially when descending. But after that, the “sleepers” had to be delivered to the other end of the island.
In the mythology of completely different cultures, on different continents, one can find references to the fact that with the help of “spells” or specially made chants, stone blocks were levitating. There are similar legends in Ponapa. Here they say that some local sorcerers – “unani” – are now capable of such “techniques ” but in a much more modest size. They gain strength for their powers after a long preparation, which consists of a long ascetic voluntary imprisonment in special pits, which are located on the territory of Nan Madol.
Further, legends claim that the basalt blocks from which the city was built, according to the will of the builder gods, flew themselves through the air and each occupied its place. The canals surrounding Nan Madol were dug by a huge, fire-spitting dragon.
It was not by chance that Olosopa and Olosipa chose the place to build Nan Madol. First, they climbed to the top of a high mountain, from which they surveyed the whole island. And from there, from a height, “they saw the city of the gods under water and took it as a sign that they should build their city on this place. And they built Nan Madol as a ‘mirror image’ of its sunken brother.”
Years ago, a group of Australian scientists conducted a thorough study of the ancient complex and found out many interesting points. Firstly, the architecture of Nan Madol turned out to be so peculiar that no explicit analogy can be found in other parts of the planet. Secondly, the age of Nan Madol was approximately determined – more than a thousand years. Scientists also suggested that the construction of the city took no less than two hundred years. And, finally, the most interesting thing: not far from the basalt structures, under water, scientists discovered another city, most likely the same “city of the gods”, whose age is no less than ten thousand years.
The ruins of ancient megalithic structures were found on the islands of Babeldaob and Kosrae. And on the island of Yap, there are even more unusual traces of an ancient civilization. The whole island is strewn with strange formations called “Rai stones”. These are round stone discs with a hole in the middle. It is interesting that the locals use them as a means of payment and their name is appropriate – “stone money”. After the transaction, the movement of such a “coin” is not required, and the contract is concluded orally.
The new parts of Nan Madol discovered under water have further confused historians. What ancient civilization built such an unusual city, and what happened to it? There are no scientific answers to these questions yet, and Nan Madol, in combination with the structures of other islands, continues to be one of the biggest mysteries of history. The ancient “Pacific Venice” or the ruins of Lemuria, or maybe Atlantis?
However, it is very difficult to believe that the creation of an entire city in the water is the result of simple manual labor.
