© CC BY 3.0 / gozturk / Lake VanLake Van, Turkey
The excavations were led by Van Yüzüncü Yıl University and the governorship of Turkey's eastern Bitlis Province. The researchers who went underwater believe that the ruins are supposedly from the Iron Age Urartu civilization, also known as the Kingdom of Van, thought to date back to the eighth to seventh centuries B.C., Turkish Daily Sabah reports on Sunday.
"There was a rumor that there might be something under the water, but most archaeologists and museum officials told us that we won't find anything," the outlet quotes the head of the diving team, Tahsin Ceylan, as saying.
According to the researcher, Lake Van, which is located in Eastern Anatolian region near the border with Iran, has a history which spans 6,000 years. It is believed to be formed by a crater caused by a volcanic explosion of Mount Nemrut near the province of Van. The current water level of the reservoir is about 150 meters higher than it was during the Urartu civilization.
"Civilizations living around the lake set up large villages and settlements while the water level of the lake was low, but they had to leave the area after it increased again," Ceylan told the newspaper.
The underwater site is expected to attract thousands of tourists and divers due to its historic value.
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Flood hypothesis[edit] Black Sea today (light blue) and in 5600 BC (dark blue) according to Ryan and Pitman's hypothesisIn 1997, William Ryan, Walter Pitman and their colleagues published their hypothesis that a massive flooding of the Black Sea occurred about 5600 BC through the Bosphorus.[2] Before that date, glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes draining into the Aegean Sea. As glaciers retreated, some of the rivers emptying into the Black Sea declined in volume and changed course to drain into the North Sea.[4] The levels of the lakes dropped through evaporation, while changes in worldwide hydrology caused overall sea level to rise. The rising Mediterranean finally spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosphorus. The event flooded 155,000 km2 (60,000 sq mi) of land and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and west. According to the researchers, "40 km3 (10 cu mi) of water poured through each day, two hundred times the flow of the Niagara Falls. The Bosphorus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days."[5] Some archaeologists support this theory as an explanation for the lack of Neolithic period sites in northern Turkey.[6][7][8]