Plato’s legend of Atlantis has come to life once again, with archaeologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences having just discovered “traces of a submerged city” destroyed by a devastating 15th-century earthquake underneath Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk Kul, the eighth deepest lake in the world.
The city at the flooded Toru-Aygyr complex, which lies near the lake’s northwest point, has now been excavated by the explorers, who surveyed four underwater zones at shallow depths ranging from 3 to 13 feet around the lake’s shoreline.
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There, they found a wealth of everyday items that painted the picture of a once-thriving metropolis or “large commercial agglomeration.” Discoveries included multiple fired brick structures (one contained a millstone, which was used to crush and grind grain), caved-in stone structures and wooden beams.
In one of the zones, archaeologists also believe they’ve found what was once a public building that could have served as a mosque, bathhouse or school, also called a “madressa.”
In the three others, remnants of some kind of burial ground, a 13th-century Muslim necropolis — a large cemetery typically belonging to an ancient city — and mudbrick structures in round and rectangular shapes were also discovered.
There were also burials found that showed evidence of traditional Islamic rituals, with the skeletons facing north. Their faces are turned toward the qibla, the direction Muslims face during their daily prayers.
“All this confirms that an ancient city really once stood here,” a representative from the Russian Geographical Society (who funded the expedition), told the Daily Mail.
The lost Toru-Aygyr settlement sat on a major section of the historical culture-accelerating Silk Road, where merchants would trade silk, spices and precious metals — not to mention thoughts and ideas — between China and the Mediterranean from the second century BC to the mid-15th century.
Experts believe the complex once thrived but went under when a “terrible earthquake” hit near the start of the 15th century, Valery Kolchenko, the lead expeditionist and a researcher at the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, shared with the Daily Mail.
Luckily, Kolchenko and his colleagues believe that the area was abandoned by residents before the natural disaster.
