Eliki, the lost Atlantis

Eliki, the lost Atlantis

Alexis Papadopoulos stated: "The whole issue reminded me of the legend of the lost Atlantis but the fact that 19 people before me had periodically attempted to find Eliki led me to believe that Eliki was submerged but not lost. Therefore for me as an under water explorer, -because that's what I am and not an archeologist-, I had trained myself to observe the seabed and notice any morphological changes. That was my only weapon. After seeing the picture of the coin on a magazine (photo 1 STAATLICHES MUSEUM, BERLIN), I had been studying whatever had been written about ancient Eliki. The evidence indicated that apart from the powerful earthquake, which leveled the city, the Tsunami wave, which followed, completed the job. I was not expecting to discover a Hollywood style scene of an intact city complete with temples untouched with their marble columns and decorations or houses as they were over two thousand years ago. What I was expecting to come across was the remains of a city after a powerful earthquake. My eyes scanned the seabed looking for some geometric shapes, a straight line or other evidence eroded with the passage of time. The beginning of the discovery occurred in the beginning of September 1979. By 1982 I had completed the documentary. I am the only one to have amassed the evidence, which proves the existence of Eliki.
I followed the written texts of the historian Pausanias who gives a most detailed account of the disappearance of Eliki. He describes the devastating earthquake, which was followed by a Tsunami wave, swallowing the entire city with the sea covering its remains. Ruins of the ancient city were still visible under the sea during his time and 5 centuries after the earthquake (Pausanias "Achaika"). In his writings "Achaika" he pinpoints Eliki, stating: "as someone proceeds further he comes across the river Selinounda and there, 40 stades (Greek ancient unit of linear measurement, nearly 7 nautical miles) from Aegeion on the sea is the region of Eliki".

My love for what I was doing, my stubbornness and possibly my Goddess of good fortune led me to a stone (photo 2). A chiseled stone. It was the first indication that I was close to my goal.























The seabed was unusual, hollow. One vertical surface about 2 meters high had form and harmony (photo 3).












I sensed that it was formed by human hand. Cleaning it with my knife I noticed even distances in the seams (photo 4). It was part of a wall made of large chiseled rectangular stones without mortar in the seams.
With my camera I recorded part of walls, fallen roofs, streets, roof tiles. In the area around there were scattered tiles of Corinthian style as established later by the archeologists (photo 5,6).
The ruins of walls exclude the possibility to face a shipwreck which carried ceramics. The ruins of walls with the ceramics seal the traces of the lost city.

The city's patron Poseidon had been worshiped since Homeric times. There was a temple dedicated to the Elikoneos Poseidon. It is mentioned (Pausanias "Achaika") that there was a statue of supernatural proportions, dedicated to the God of the Sea, Poseidon. Moreover, the reports from the historian Stravonas (Stravon VIII 384a) who was based on Eratosthenis who visited the area one century later after the disaster, states that in the sea there was the statue of Poseidon on which fishermen often fouled their nets. The nets of fishermen could not be fouled in the land. I cannot convey the intensity of the emotions I felt when I touched a gray mass on the seabed.

It was a large base 7m x 7m and 4m high with a smaller base 5m x 5m and 0,80m high mounted on top. The dimensions of such a big base verify that this base must have accepted a very big statue. It is well known that from ancient years the statues stood on a base. I do not believe that somebody must be an archaeologist in order to understand this. I am convinced that it is the stand of Elikonios Poseidon. The throne of the God of the sea was still there after 2.500 years".