Тонущие города

For hundred of years some of the antique towns located on the Black sea coast were regarded as the mythical ones. At different times people used to tell stories about them. For example, it was known nothing about disappearance of the big ancient greek town-port of Dioskurius, which according to the myth was founded by argonavts who had went to Kolchida with Jazon to find the gold fleece. Nobody knew what kind of the ruins were seen by the soldies of Catherine the second at the beginning of 80th in XVIII c, when the russian troops defeated the Turks and entered the west coast of the Crimea. They thought it was the famous ancient Roman fortress of Sebastopol, but not the ancient greek town of Khersones as it really was. The empress who liked to name her new military ports with the classic fashionable.titles, settled Sevastopol at a distance of 600 km from the real place (Sukhumi), and transfered Kherson to the mouth of Dnieper.

The legends were not the only ones telling our descendants about the towns which disappeared in the North and East Coasts of the Black Sea. Many famous.scientists and writers including Gerodoty, Strabony, Proko-py Kesariisky wrote about it. They did not meen that those towns were fabulous, but the big sea ports, military fortresses, trade centers which had been well known in the whole antique world. Here the ways were crossed connecting the wild North and East of that world with the secular West. Two great cultures of ancient Greece and Byzantine were interacted there.

The time was merciless to the ancient towns. They were defeated by Barbarians and destructed by the internal conflicts. The severe forces on nature also left their vivid traces. In particular they are blamed for disappearance of ancient towns deep in the sea.

The centuries and milleniums have passed, and the civilized world has again heard the ancient names such as Olvia, Khersones, Pantikapious, Fanagorium, Germonassia, Nimpheum. These and the other numerous antique towns and settlements begin to appear on the maps of the historians dealing with the ancient world. The end of the last century meant the whole period of the sensational discoveries regarded the submerged towns. In particular, many of them were found at the coast of the Black, Mediterranian, Adriatic, Asov and Caspian seas.

The fates of submerged towns and history of their destruction are similar to a certain extent, but the ways of their revelation and investigation are various. Some of them were carefully studied in course of archeological exavations, discussed in the serious research publications, in public press and in documentary films. The others were studied by the short-time accidental submarine expeditions or archeological exavations, and briefly discussed in the periodics. Possibly, the most unexpected finds are still in the future.

Submerged towns. They, like the traces of time reflect the multicentury history of a mankind and mark the stages of the changeable life of the seas. Recently, the important discoveries have been made in the submarine archeology. Scientists could not find out the submerged bospo-rous Akra for many decades. Now they discovered it in the Kerch strait, nearby the east coast of the Crimea. Some unexpected finds were revealed in the Karantinnaja bay, nearby Sevastopol. Another fortress wall of the ancient Khersones was discovered there. Pontida, considered to be a mythical country once existed on the part of the Black Sea’s bottom, now begins to take visible shape.

Why the ancient towns came down to the water? What were the reasons for it? A reader will not find out the direct answers in this book. And that is not because they are not existing, but there are too many of them. In general, the science does not accept the synonymous decisions. Doubts are its major moving force. At first it seemed to be sufficient to examine the found submerged towns, to touch them, to study the remains at the laboratories for making everything clear. However, a detailed study causes more questions and proposals regarded the reasons of their destructions.

According to the tectonic hypothesis in science, the priority is given to the concept of the earth surface vibrations. The depth power of earth moves continents, causes falls down and lifts up of the different parts of land. For example, the North coast of the Black sea moves down with a speed of 2–5 mm per year. It seems not to be large. However, one should have in mind, that the age of the most submerged towns comes to hundreds of years. Therefore, this value can be turned into many meters.

According to another hypothesis, the floods of the sea coast’s towns took place due to the lift up of the World Ocean’s level. Now we live at the after-glacial period which started about 17 000 years ago. Since then, glacials and snow hats of our planet’s poles continue to melt slowly but permanently. That leads to the increase of waters” level in the oceans and seas.