Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

by Graham Hancock

Overview

What secrets lie beneath the deep blue sea? Underworld takes you on a remarkable journey to the bottom of the ocean in a thrilling hunt for ancient ruins that have never been found—until now.

Graham Hancock is featured in Ancient Apocalypse, a Netflix original docuseries

In this explosive new work of archaeological detection, bestselling author and renowned explorer Graham Hancock embarks on a captivating underwater voyage to find the ruins of a mythical lost civilization hidden for thousands of years beneath the world’s oceans. Guided by cutting-edge science, innovative computer-mapping techniques, and the latest archaeological scholarship, Hancock examines the mystery at the end of the last Ice Age and delivers astonishing revelations that challenge our long-held views about the existence of a sunken universe built on the ocean floor.

Filled with exhilarating accounts of his own participation in dives off the coast of Japan, as well as in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Arabian Sea, we watch as Hancock discovers underwater ruins exactly where the ancient myths say they should be—submerged kingdoms that archaeologists never thought existed. You will be captivated by Underworld, a provocative book that is both a compelling piece of hard evidence for a fascinating forgotten episode in human history and a completely new explanation for the origins of civilization as we know it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307548566
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/18/2009
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	784
Sales rank:	507,335
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Graham Hancock is the author of a number of bestselling investigations of historical mysteries. These include The Sign and the Seal, The Message of the Sphinx, Fingerprints of the Gods, Heaven’s Mirror, and The Mars Mystery. His books have been translated into twenty languages and have sold more than four million copies around the world. He lives in Devon, England.

Read an Excerpt

Dave Jones' Locker

I knew that I had to learn to dive and talked my wife Santha into doing lessons with me when we were on a visit to Los Angeles. We took our PADI Open-Water courses in the chill, kelpy waters off Catalina Island in November 1996.

My first reaction to diving was that it was a weird and scary experience, contrary to the laws of nature, and that I was unlikely to survive it. I was wrapped up like the Michelin Man in a full-body neoprene wetsuit, and there seemed to be a ludicrous amount of equipment strapped, velcroed or clipped on to me.

Let’s start at the feet. Here the diver wears short rubber boots tucked inside the ankle-cuffs of his wetsuit. The wetsuit works by taking in a thin layer of water between the skin and the suit; this is rapidly warmed to body temperature and remains warm for some time because the neoprene of the suit is an excellent insulator. Over the boots are strapped the diver’s fins, without which he would be almost as clumsy and immobile submerged as he is on land with all his gear on, and would unnecessarily waste a great deal of energy thrashing about. Strapped to his calf there should be a strong stainless-steel knife with a sharp blade–this can be life-saving if you get caught up in a drifting fishing net or some other equally uncompromising, usually man-made, hazard.

Around the diver’s waist is a belt through which are threaded a number of lead weights to compensate for the natural buoyancy of the body and the additional buoyancy of the wetsuit. These days I can often get away with 2 kilos, but inexperienced divers need a lot more. On my first dives back in 1996 and into the first half of 1997, I remember having to use 12 and in one case even 14 kilos–a horrendous load.

Moving on up the body, the next item of equipment the diver wears is a partially inflatable sleeveless jacket called a Buoyancy Control Device–‘BCD’, or just ‘BC’ for short. The scuba tank which provides the diver with air to breathe underwater is strapped on to the back of the BC and typically comes in 10, 12 and 15 litre sizes. A mid-sized tank weighs more than 15 kilos and for most dives is filled with nothing other than normal air under enormous compression. This is delivered to the diver through two transformers which step down the pressure of the air to a level where it can be breathed easily. The ‘first-stage’ is mounted immediately on top of the tank and removes most of the pressure, from here a rubber hose leads to the ‘second-stage’, or ‘regulator’, which is placed in the diver’s mouth and provides air on demand. Three other rubber hoses also emerge from the first-stage. One of these connects to the BC, allowing the diver to power-inflate it direct from the tank. One leads to a dangling instrument-console usually containing a compass and gauges that tell you how much air you have left and how deep you are. The last, called the ‘octopus’, is a spare second-stage for use in emergencies–for example to provide air to another diver whose own tank is empty.

Sometimes divers wear a rubber hood, since heat loss from the unprotected head is very rapid. A glass-fronted mask, without which the human eye can only perceive blurred images under water, covers the eyes and nose. The final major pieces of equipment are a small wrist computer, which can save your life by warning you if you are ascending too fast from depth, and a pair of gloves to keep your hands warm and prevent grazing or accidental contact with unpleasant marine organisms like fire coral.

Wrapped up in all this stuff, with our total scuba experience at that time amounting to just three half-hour swimming-pool dives each, Santha and I contemplated the waters of the Pacific with certain misgivings. To be honest, we were afraid. It looked deep and dark and dangerous down there, down amongst the waving streamers of kelp, down in Davy Jones’ Locker … But if we wanted to see that incredible underwater structure in Japan for ourselves then we were going to have to do this. On our instructor’s command we jumped in and paddled out from shore.

Four days later we were licensed but definitely not yet experienced enough to dive at Yonaguni.

A generous offer

I did not know when we would be able to organize a diving trip to Japan but knew only that it would be expensive. Then a strange synchronicity occurred. Out of the blue some time in January 1997 I received a fax from an American company representing a Japanese businessman. The fax said that the business man had read Fingerprints of the Gods and would like to invite Santha and me to fly first-class to Yonaguni at his expense to explore the island and to dive at the monument. He would ensure our safety by sending a group of top-flight diving instructors with us from the Seamen’s Club, a hotel and dive school on the neighbouring island of Ishigaki. He would also provide us with a fully equipped dive boat and all other facilities. 

There were no strings attached to this generous offer, which we accepted. In March 1997 we flew from London to Tokyo and then via Okinawa to Yonaguni to do our first dives there. This was the beginning of a long-term friendship with the businessman (whose privacy I protect) and of what began as an informal project to explore, document and try to understand the sequence of ancient and highly anomalous structures that have been found underwater at Yonaguni and at other islands in south-west Japan.

Yonaguni

The first anomalous structure that was discovered at Yonaguni lies below glowering cliffs of the southern shore of the island. Local divers call it Iseki Point (‘Monument Point’). Into its south face, at a depth of about 18 metres, an area of terracing with conspicuous flat planes and right-angles has been cut. Two huge parallel blocks weighing approximately 30 tonnes each and separated by a gap of less than 10 centimetres, have been placed upright side by side at its north-west corner. In about 5 metres of water at the very top of the structure there is a kidney-shaped ‘pool’ and near by is a feature that many divers believe is a crude rock-carved image of a turtle. At the base of the monument, in 27 metres of water, there is a clearly defined stone-paved path oriented towards the east.

If the diver follows this path–a relatively easy task, since there is often a strong west-to-east current here–he will come in a few hundred metres to ‘the megalith’, a rounded, 2 tonne boulder that seems to have been purposely placed on a carved ledge at the centre of a huge stone platform.

Two kilometres west of Iseki Point is the ‘Palace’. Here an underwater passageway leads into the northern end of a spacious chamber with megalithic walls and ceiling. At the southern end of the chamber a tall, lintelled doorway leads into a second smaller chamber beyond. At the end of that chamber is a vertical, rock-hewn shaft that emerges outside on the roof of the ‘Palace’. Near by a flat rock bears a pattern of strange, deep grooves. A little further east there is a second megalithic passage roofed by a gigantic slab that fits snugly against the tops of the supporting walls.

Two kilometres to the east of Iseki Point is Tategami Iwa, literally ‘The Standing God Stone’, a natural pinnacle of rugged black rock that soars up out of the ocean. At its base, 18 metres underwater, there is a horizontal tunnel, barely wide enough to fit a diver, that runs perfectly straight west to east and emerges amidst a scatter of large blocks with clean-cut edges.

A three-minute swim to the south-east brings the diver to what looks like an extensive ceremonial complex carved out of stone. Here at depths of 15 to 25 metres there are massive rectilinear structures with sheer walls separated by wide avenues.

At the centre is the monument that local divers refer to as ‘the stone stage’. Into its south-facing corner either man or nature has carved an image that looks to some like a gigantic anthropoid face with two clearly marked eyes . . . 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

PART ONE: Initiation
1. Relics
2. The Riddle of the Antediluvian Cities
3. Meltdown

PART TWO: India (1)
4. Forgotten Cities, Ancient Texts and an Indian Atlantis
5. Pilgrimage to India
6. The Place of the Ship's Descent
7. Lost India
8. The Demon on the Mountain and the Rebirth of Civilization

PART THREE: India (2)
9. Fairytale Kingdom
10. The Mystery of the Red Hill
11. The Quest for Kumari Kandam
12. The Hidden Years
13. Pyramid Islands
14. Ghosts in the Water

PART FOUR: Malta
15. Smoke and Fire in Malta
16. Cave of Bones
17. The Thorn in the Flesh
18. The Masque of the Green Book
19. Inundation
20. The Morning of the World

PART FIVE: Ancient Maps
21. Terra Incognita
22. The Secret Memories of Maps
23. Looking for the Lost on the Road to Nowhere
24. The Metamorphoses of Antilia

PART SIX: Japan, Taiwan, China
25. The Land Beloved of the Gods
26. Remembrance
27. Confronting Yonaguni
28. Maps of Japan and Taiwan 13,000 Years Ago?
29. Confronting Kerama
30. The Shark at the Gate

Postscript 1 -- The Underworld in the Gulf of Cambay
Postscript 2 -- The Underworld in the Bay of Bengal
Appendix 1 -- Report on the Completion of the Joint SES/NIO Expedition to South-east India
Appendix 2 -- SES Press Release, 5 April 2002, Announcing the Discovery of Underwater Ruins at Mahabalipuram and Inviting Media to a Press Reception, 10 April 2002
Appendix 3 -- Preliminary Underwater Archaeological Explorations off Mahabalipuram. Statement by National Institute ofOceanography, 9 April 2002
Appendix 4 -- Comments by Graham Hancock on the NIO Statement of 9 April 2002 Regarding Preliminary Underwater Archaeological Explorations off Mahabalipuram
Appendix 5 -- Who Discovered the Underwater Ruins at Mahabalipuram? And Who is Claiming What?
Appendix 6 -- UK Press Coverage of Mahabalipuram Discovery, April 2002
Appendix 7 -- Press Report on Paulina Zelitsky's Explorations in Cuba
Appendix 8 -- Press Report from Times of India, 6 July 2002
Online Appendices and Photographs
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

Master of historical mysteries Graham Hancock goes underwater to discover Ice Age civilizations. In perhaps his most startling book yet, the author of Fingerprints of the Gods taps on recent scientific advances to postulate the existence of ancient cultures that prospered 8,000 to 15,000 years ago. Then, diving equipment in tow, he sets off to validate his theories…

Already a huge success in England, this lengthy and at times quite academic study extends the basic argument of Hancock's 1994 Fingerprints of the Gods, a wild combination of astronomy, archeology, geology and folk myth whose worldwide success made Hancock perhaps the most popular proponent of "alternative history" as well as a publishing phenomenon. Hancock's basic thesis is simple: although mainstream scholars refuse to believe it, there once was "a lost civilization destroyed in the cataclysmic global floods that brought the last Ice Age to an end," and the survivors passed on their knowledge to the newer ancient civilizations with which we are more familiar. The search for an "Indian Atlantis" is the basis for this book, which is structured around Hancock's exploration of underwater sites near India, Japan, Taiwan and China, and in the Arabian and Mediterranean Seas. As usual, Hancock wonderfully introduces the general reader to Indian and Japanese subcultures; however, his reliance primarily on works by local alternative historians many of whose views have been clearly refuted by other scientists while ignoring almost anything that refutes his own thesis undercuts his credibility. In his effort to present his step-by-step discoveries in the style of a "whodunit," Hancock remains an entertaining writer and an interesting cultural journalist. But while the exploration of undersea prehistoric sites is a fascinating and ongoing research area, and Hancock's main contribution to the subject his theories continues to make him a successful writer, his works have been relegated to marginalia. (Nov.) Forecast: Hancock's highly controversial view of history and his theories about "lost civilizations" have gained him an audience that will not be disappointed by Underworld. However, this will not convert the unconverted. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Graham Hancock is no stranger to controversy. The former journalist, whose books have sold five million copies in the past 10 years, has repeatedly dared to challenge scientific shibboleth, taking a run at entrenched thinking in archeology, geology and astronomy.” — The Globe and Mail

“Hancock wonderfully introduces the general reader to Indian and Japanese subcultures . . . an entertaining writer and an interesting cultural journalist.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher