Is this a wall of Dwarka?

14-km long wall discovered near the Konkan coast could lead to a fort, say archaeologists

If James Cameron, director of the Hollywood block buster Avatar, had known what a noted Pune archeologist has discovered in the waters of the Arabian Sea, he would probably be tempted to make a sequel to his film.

But unlike Avatar, a film that depicts the way humanoids exist in the future, this discovery could throw light on the ancient civilization that existed hundreds of years ago.

Archaeologist Ashok Marathe and his team accidentally discovered a massive underwater 14-km wall under the sea near Valneshwar off the Ratnagiri coast. And the discovery has baffled archaeologists and oceanologists, who are trying to figure out which ancient civilisation could have constructed such a big wall and that too under the sea. The purpose of constructing an underwater wall is equally baffling.

Found by chance
The wall which is 2.5-metre wide was discovered accidentally by Marathe when he was examining a satellite picture of Valneshwar in Ratnagiri district, when he noticed a white line extending several kms in distance.

"I was curious to know what this line was. I felt that it could belong to an ancient civilisation. So we gathered a team of marine engineers, oceanologists and scuba divers and made an underwater survey only to find this magnificent wall," said Marathe, adding that the wall could probably lead to a fort.

The survey was done on December 10 and 11 and according to Marathe it could be as old as the first century. "However, the correct age of the wall can only be found after carrying out a detailed study and carbon dating the samples," he added.

Wall of a fort?
The wall is about 2.5-m wide and is 3-m below the sea level. It is joining two coastal locations one at Valneshwar where it is going into the Arabian Sea and at Anjarle where the end portion runs parallel to the coast.

Dr BS Chandrashekar, a remote sensing geologist who has also studied this wall using satellite imagery, said, "This is a fascinating wall which extends under the sea. I have studied it through remote sensing and my preliminary observation is that it could lead to a fort. But who constructed it or what was its purpose can be known only after a detailed archaeological examination."