Sunken Cities
The Yonaguni Monument
Age disputed · 5 to 25 m · Off Yonaguni Island, Okinawa, Japan
Advanced divesThe prize. Terraces, channels, and right angles, city or geology, the sea won't say
Where. Off Yonaguni Island, Okinawa, Japan
Status. Advanced dives
Where. Off Yonaguni Island, Okinawa, Japan
Status. Advanced dives
The account
Off Japan's last western island, a stone formation rises from twenty-five metres like a flooded ziggurat: terraces, flat planes, sharp corners, what some call a gate. One school says a sunken city ten thousand years old; another says the sandstone simply breaks that way. The current rips, the hammerheads school past in winter, and the argument continues at depth.
Leads, where the trail points now
- A stepped rock formation off Yonaguni in Japan that some call a 10,000-year-old sunken structure and others read as natural sandstone fracturing.
- No artifacts have ever been recovered from it, which favors the natural explanation; the open question is geological, not archaeological.
- It is a popular dive site, so this is a thing to study underwater, not a treasure to lift.
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