Atlantis Buried Between Cyprus, Syria?
Nov. 15, 2004 — U.S. researcher Robert Sarmast claimed Sunday to have found proof that the mythical lost city of Atlantis actually existed and is located under the Mediterranean seabed between Cyprus and Syria.
His team claims to have found man-made structures located about one mile (some 1.5 kilometers) below sea level and 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the southeast coast of Cyprus.
"It's been a long road to get to this point, but today it is all worth it. If this isn't it (Atlantis) what is?" Sarmast told a news conference from his base in the southern port city of Limassol.
After researching the whereabouts of the lost city for over a decade, Sarmast undertook an expedition to find Atlantis. Following an intensive search, he says he has found his Holy Grail.
"We cannot yet provide tangible proof in the form of bricks and mortar, as the artifacts are still buried under several meters of sediment, but the circumstantial and other evidence is now irrefutable," said Sarmast.
"We hope that future expeditions will be able to uncover the sediment and bring back physical proof," he said, adding that extra investment of at least $250,000 was needed to raise the expedition to the next level.
In his book "Discovery of Atlantis," Sarmast argued that Cyprus was once part of that lost continent — at its highest peak — and said his findings matched almost perfectly every clue in Plato's description of the legendary city state.
Plato's famed account in Timaeus and Critias is the sole source of the Atlantis myth dating back to 9000 B.C.
The privately-funded $200,000 expedition seeks to confound sceptics by bringing back scientific side-scan sonar data which supports evidence revealing man-made structures such as a three-kilometer (two-mile) wall.
Plato said an epochal flood "swallowed up" the mountainous island of Atlantis. The U.S. researcher argues there is scientific proof of a catastrophic flood in the entire Mediterranean basin that closed the sea off from the Atlantic.
Other theories place the lost civilization in the South China Sea, the Azores, the Aegean or the Atlantic Ocean. Greek mythology has it Atlantis was destroyed as punishment by Zeus for the greed and corruption that befell the city.