Plain
Oblong, 3000 stadia long, 1000 stadia wide (330 miles long and 110 miles wide)
Open to the sea on the south (where the canal exited to the sea)
Surrounded by mountains to the north
Ditch around the Plain
100 feet deep
1 stade wide
10,000 stade long (surrounding the whole plain) (1100 miles long)
Looks very regular (rectangular). The 110 foot deep, one third mile wide ditch is huge and should still be there if it ever existed in South America.
The Aymara people of the Bolivian highlands have long told stories of a lost underwater city: Wanaku, the Atlantis of South America. They have whispered tales of a mysterious island in Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake, with a hidden entrance to underground passageways built by the Inca. Now researchers have found the first concrete evidence that those legends may be true.
In August, divers with the Italian firm of Akakor Geographical Exploring conducted a series of 250 dives in Titicaca's murky waters. Led by a 2300-foot-long ancient road, now under water, they found the remains of a 660-foot-long and 160-foot-wide stone temple between 65 to 100 feet below the water's surface. The team also discovered a terrace, a 2600-foot-long containing wall, along with a stone anchor, vases, and bones from cameloid animals such as llama or alpaca that may have been killed in a ritual sacrifice.
The ruins lie in the waters between Bolivia's Copacabana Peninsula and Isla del Sol, home to the Temple of the Sun, where the Incan dynasty is said to have been born. They date to between 1,500 and 1,000 years ago, before the rise of the Incan Empire, when the Tiahuanaco people occupied the shores of Titicaca.
The submerged ruins may be the remains of the Aymara's legendary city, or could have been assimilated by the Inca Empire itself. "The underground passageways were reputed to link many parts of the Incan Empire with the capital at Cuzco," says head diver Stefano Castelli. "Somebody else said he removed a stone from the bottom of the lake, and saw water going down inside the hole."
"There are still a lot of secrets in this area."