Archaeologists to seek Kyrgyz Atlantis

A Kyrgyz-Russian expedition has embarked for an ancient city covered by Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, local media reported Wednesday.

Issyk-Kul, 2,250 square miles in area, is a mountain lake in the north of the country. Historians and legends tell about a disappeared island in the lake with fortifications near the north coast where Tamerlane, the Tartar conqueror in southern and western Asia and ruler of Samarkand, held noble prisoners in the 14th century, the Vecherniy Bishkek newspaper said.

People have reported seeing stone buildings in on the bottom of northeast Issyk-Kul, not far from the mouth of the Tyup River.

In the middle of the 20th century, the Kyrgyz archaeologist Dmitriy Vinnik discovered the ruins of big buildings made of burnt brick near the north coast.

In 2003, archaeologists found two bronze caldrons used for sacrifice that belonged to ancient tribes living in the territory of modern Issyk-Kul.

Local people call the disappeared island Atlantis, as in the legendary island said to have existed in the Atlantic Ocean and to have sunk beneath the sea.

Vladimir Poloskih, vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan, is leading the expedition

LOL...

Here's a reprise [Mar-7 2004 6:26 pm] from my "Sunken Civilizations" forum doodad on another provider (to remain nameless to avoid bringing the kibosh to this thread. :') Folder name "Links (yours, mine, ours)" and thread name "Cultural Capital of the World", posted by me to one "Mizta Bumpy (HerrBumpy)":

[the snippets start]

A long story is about to ensue.

Back in 1832, in Diana, Lewis County, New York, there was a Justice of the Peace. He had to ajudicate land disputes, marry folks, hold hearings, keep records, and assess property.

I tried to find the place about ten years ago, hmm, more like 14 years ago, and got to some other little town (this is somewhere east of Watertown). My friend and I turned around and went back. The only structure we'd seen on the road was a gas station and convenience store on the north side. I stopped and went in.

"Where's Diana, New York?"

"You're standing in it." I thanked the woman, and I think I bought some beef jerky, and we left.

Sometime on a Sunday in the late 1980s, in northern Illinois, one of my relatives by marriage was stopped by a man from her church. He'd found the "Docket 1832" book in the wall of his house while he was doing some remodeling, and as she and her husband have the same surname as the very late Justice of the Peace, he wanted them to have it.

Sooo, naturally, they gave it to my uncle, and he brought it during a visit and gave it to my dad. The book has since made it back to New York state, as my parents took it along when they visited The Genealogist. By what we all like to call a coincidence, The Genealogist had not three weeks earlier been helping another genealogist (all of us the same surname) related to the people who had used the book back in the 1830s and 1840s.

Y'see, after the Justice of the Peace was finished with this book -- perhaps he died, perhaps he retired -- someone, probably his son, took the book along to Illinois where he was pioneering. He used it to keep track of letters he received, some recipes, and mostly a terse diary. There's also a small sheet from a Morton Salt scratch pad, on which someone wrote "DIARY of [name] 100 years ago."

That takes care of the preamble. The actual core of the story is pretty brief.

Tue 5 ...Keene sends me a letter from Milwaukee that they have found an ancient city at Rock River[.] [Tuesday, February 5, 1837]

Definitely gotta look into that.

Mon 20 Do. worked on the Bridge at Dupage[.] Killed 2 Raccoons [Monday, February 20, 1837]

My very, very distant cousin (actually, I wouldn't swear to that) wrote "do" for "dew", and was very interested in the weather conditions. It was a matter of survival. There are plenty of entries that also mention things, like trips to Chicago to sell potatoes, or killing prairie chickens (American grouse -- there's a current big to-do, or should I say to-dew, about the possible extinction of the Texas species of prairie chicken). I wonder if the people of DuPage, Illinois are aware that there's been a bridge of some kind for the past 167 years (at least).

[Mar-7 2004 6:44 pm, from me to ElDotardo, who lives in Wisconsin]

I'll be dipped:

Aztalan State Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1835, a young man named Timothy Johnson discovered the ruins of the ancient settlement, and in December of that year and January of 1836, N. F. Hyer committed the first rough survey of the site, publishing the discovery in the Milwaukie Advertiser of January 1837. According to Lapham:
"The name Aztalan was given to this place by Mr. Hyer, because, according to Humboldt, the Aztecs, or ancient inhabitants of Mexico, had a tradition that their ancestors came from a country at the north, which they called Aztalan; and the possibility that these may have been remains of their occupancy, suggested the idea of restoring the name. It is made up of two Mexican words, atl, water, and an, near; and the country was probably so named from its proximity to large bodies of water. Hence the natural inference that the country about these great lakes was the ancient residence of the Aztecs."
Hyer wrote that "We are determined to preserve these ruins from being ruined." However, in 1838, President Martin Van Buren refused a request by Massachusetts statesman Edward Everett to withdraw the site from public sale, and the site was sold for $22. In the following years, the surface was plowed, the mounds were leveled for easier farming, pottery shards and "Aztalan brick" were hauled away by the wagonload to fill in potholes in township roads, and souvenir hunters took numerous artifacts.

In 1850, Increase A. Lapham, an author, scientist, and naturalist, surveyed the site, and urged its preservation. At the time, the stockade was still standing, though not in the condition it had once been.

[Mar-7 2004 9:13 pm from: Mizta Bumpy (HerrBumpy)]

Wow.... what are the chances? I was born and raised on a town on the Rock River (Beloit).... The Mighty Rock... Ever been to Beloit?

[Mar-8 2004 1:27 pm from ElDotardo]

Who knew?

Aztalan State Park

This park contains one of Wisconsin's most important archaeological sites. It showcases an ancient Middle-Mississippian village and ceremonial complex that thrived between 1000 and 1300 A.D.

Archaeologists theorize that the occupants may have cultural traditions in common with Cahokia, a large Middle-Mississippian settlement near East St. Louis, Illinois. The people who settled Aztalan built large, flat-topped pyramidal mounds and a stockade around their village. They hunted, fished, and farmed on the floodplain of the Crawfish River. Portions of the stockade and two mounds have been reconstructed in the park. . . .

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/parks/specific/aztalan/

I need to get out more - this will make a good field trip with the kiddies this summer. Thanks for the heads-up!

Speaking of Greece (someone was back in this topic) , did you notice the recent election there of a conservative government!

It's a definite trend!

[May-10 2004 12:30 am from ElDotardo to Mizta Bumpy (HerrBumpy)]

Nope, never. :') Okay... I may have, but would have to go there again to figure it out. :'o

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