The ASI has confirmed the finding of a new ancient site near Mahabalipuram.

MAHABALIPURAM, India, February 25, 2005 (islamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Archaeologists began underwater excavations of what is believed to be an ancient city and parts of a temple uncovered by the tsunami off the coast of a centuries-old pilgrimage town.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) confirmed the finding of a new ancient site near Mahabalipuram, about 48 kilometres south of Chennai, a leading Indian paper reported Thursday, February 24.

Expecting an entire lost city, the archaeologists began Thursday underwater excavations of what is believed to be an ancient city and parts of a temple uncovered by the tsunami, The Statesman said.

Three rocky structures with elaborate animal carvings have emerged near the coastal town of Mahabalipuram, which was battered by the killer waves last December.

The force of the tsunami waters removed sand deposits revealing structures, which appear to belong to a port city built in the seventh century, T. Satyamurthy, a senior archaeologist with the ASI, Chennai office, told The Statesman.

“The tsunami has exposed a bas relief which appears to be part of a temple wall or a portion of the ancient port city. Our excavations will throw more light on these,” Satyamurthy said.

The six-foot rocky structures that have emerged in Mahabalipuram include an elaborately carved head of an elephant and a horse in flight.

Above the elephant’s head is a small square-shaped niche with a carved statue of a deity. Another structure uncovered by the tsunami has a reclining lion sculpted on it, as per the paper.

According to archaeologists, lions, elephants and peacocks were commonly used to decorate walls and temples during the Pallava period in the seventh and eighth centuries, thus making them infer that the discovered structure must have been a temple wall.

“These structures could be part of the legendary seven pagodas,” Satyamurthy said.

Around 290,000 people have been confirmed killed and thousands have been missing in walls of tidal waves triggered by a 9.0 magnitude underwater earthquake – the world’s biggest earthquake in 40 years – which struck deep in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island on December 26.

Moving Cities

In a separate-related development that reflects the powerful impact Tsunami had on the geography of the area, two Thai cities, Phuket and Bangkok, moved from their locations, according to The Nation daily Wednesday.

Phuket shifted 32 centimetres to the south-west and Bangkok moved nine centimetres as a result of the Sumatra earthquake that caused the devastating tsunami two months ago, a Chulalongkorn University lecturer told the Malaysian daily.

Dr Itthi Trisirisattayawong, head of the Faculty of Engineering’s Survey Department, said the positions of Phuket and Bangkok were measured and compared with data recorded in October.

He said the measurements were carried out using GPS (global positioning system) receivers installed at Phuket’s Promthep Cape and at the Faculty of Engineering.

The land position measurements were carried out as part of the Southeast Asia Mastering Environment Research with Geodetic and Space Techniques (Seamerges) project with the cooperation of ASEAN and the EU. The project began on January 19 last year.

According to the paper, the study was initially carried out only at two locations after the earthquake.

Data will soon be taken at six other locations in Uttaradit, Uthai Thani, Si Sa Ket and Chumphon to get a better picture of the effects of the quake on land positions, Trisirisattayawong said.

The movement of land would have no effect on the general population, but it would have technical repercussions on certain agencies, such as the Royal Military Survey Department, he added.

The survey team took three weeks to measure the two locations as it required the use of high-precision GPS receivers and the data had to be analysed by software from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA, in the United States.

He said his department would work with the Mineral Resources Department to set up five more GPS measurement stations, requiring a budget of Bt12 million.