Tsunamis are big news for the last few days and there may be an ancient reason along with a current one. A group of researchers are saying a tsunami likely destroyed the fabled lost city of Atlantis...and it is underneath mud flats in southern Spain.
The team's findings are the subject of "Finding Atlantis," a National Geographic Channel special airing this weekend.
University of Hartford professor Richard Freund, who led the international team searching for Atlantis, told Reuters ""It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about."
They used a satellite photo to find the site just north of Cadiz, Spain and used a combination of deep-ground radar and underwater equipment to conduct a survey. They now say in the marshlands of the Dona Ana Park they have found Atlantis.
Why so? Their belief is the cities nearby were "memorial cities" to Atlantis built by refugees after the city's destruction. Atlantis, as Plato wrote 2,600 years ago, was an island situated in the Pillars of Hercules - the Straits of Gibraltar in ancient times, it is said.
The cities nearby, Freund believes, are designed to emulate the multi-ringed dominion that would be Atlantis. Using Plato's writing, Freund says, has led searchers to focus on the Atlantic and Mediterranean. The search has been on since 2004, when the satellite photos became public knowledge.
