Tales of Yonaguni

A Tale of Two Ancient Cities

2012-01-24T18:10:00.000-08:00

Imagine this scenario. It is almost two millennia ago. You live in a beautiful, seaside city. The surrounding land is flat and fertile. Water is abundant. As a bonus, your city sits beside a deep water harbor and enjoys the benefits of foreign trade. Your lovely city is called Bathonia.

Farther along the coast, there is another location. Water is scarce. There are steep hills overlooking another deep water harbor. Trade is possible, but the lack of water is a serious handicap. Food has to be grown elsewhere. This location came to be called Constantinople.

For some reason not fully understood, about two millennia ago, the population abandoned Bathonia and built up Constantinople. Why?

One scenario posits that Constantinople was easy to defend from the Roman legions and other attackers. This makes perfect sense. The history of the Crusades proves the defensibility of Constantinople.

But what if something else were true? Some of the ruins of Bathonia are now submerged in a lake, cut off from the Sea of Marmara. What if a devastating earthquake suddenly closed the entrance to Bathonia’s deep-sea harbor? This, too, would make perfect sense. A natural disaster devastating a hometown is a good reason to pull up stakes and rebuild elsewhere.

Studies of Bathonian ruins made accessible by a drought that lowered the water level may shed light on why Bathonia was abandoned in favor of Constantinople, now called Istanbul.

But what about Yonaguni? Where did everyone go? Why did they leave? It is so much harder to find answers when your study target is at the bottom of the sea, scoured by fast moving ocean currents.

Snake-Free!

2011-11-07T16:59:00.000-08:00

Zamami Island, about two hours west of Naha (Okinawa) by fast ferry, is in the Kerama island group. Among the island's many charms is the fact that it does not host the deadly habu snakes found on Okinawa proper. Yonaguni is also habu-free.

The most common explanation for the fact that some islands are infested with habu and others are not goes like this. The islands that have snakes living on them were once connected. When the land bridges that connected them subsided below sea level, they became independent islands with shared animal populations. The islands that do not have snakes came into being separately, when sub-sea sedimentary rock layers were fractured, tilted, and pushed up above sea level.

An Ancient Earthquake (Zamami Island)

2011-11-07T16:51:00.000-08:00

The two dark stripes and their discontinuities tell of earthquakes that happened in ancient days. The larger right/left discrepancy is close to one foot. The one above that is a few inches.

Losing a Civilization

2011-05-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

When ten thousand lives are lost in an instant, when a way of life is wiped out in that same instant--all in one small part of the planet--you can say a civilization has been lost. That is what happened on March 11, 2011 in northeastern Japan. An earthquake coupled with a tsunami erased lives, housing, communications, transportation, and the fishing industry--the people and the way of life they created.

What's the difference between what happened in Japan's Tohoku and what happened in Yonaguni eons ago?

The simple answer is, in Tohoku, the stories were not lost. Everything was recorded in words and pictures. There were witnesses who survived.

Suppose there were witnesses who survived the Yonaguni disaster? Would the symbols and marks on stone tablets now preserved in the prefectural museum in Naha, Okinawa, be their stories?

The Chiba Story (liquefaction) 2

2011-04-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Liquefaction at its most serious looks like Kobe after the Great Hanshin Earthquake: solid ground loses its solidity, and buildings topple. Now, Chiba prefecture has been afflicted by soil liquefaction.

What does it look like in Chiba?

It sounds cartoonish, but it is horribly serious.

For instance, you can only fill a glass half full. If it's on the table in your house, neither table nor glass is standing up straight because your house is leaning at a crazy angle. If you walk around outside in the affected areas, you might feel suddenly tall because heavy utility poles have sunk to a fraction of their former height. Or maybe you will feel suddenly dwarfed by odd mushroomlike structures sprouting from the streets, because manholes and their hollow concrete cylinders have floated up.

What do you do with a house that didn't fall down, but that won't let you sleep in it because you keep rolling out of bed? Let's hope there are smart engineers out there who can figure out a way to fix Chiba and the damage caused by soil liquefaction.

The Chiba Story (liquefaction)

2011-04-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

Liquefaction! Do you picture the earth beneath your feet turning to water? Here's what happens, with a little help from Dr. Hazen, the first geologist to explain the phenomenon, back in the 20s.

When the soil is sandy and not well compacted, it's texture is grainy. If pressure is applied from above (for instance, a building is constructed on top of it) the soil can bear the pressure. Any water left in the sandy soil tends to be squeezed out. It moves from high pressure (under the building) to low pressure (anywhere not under the building).

But--if water is suddenly and repeatedly injected among the sand grains--instead of bearing the load, the grains roll around like well oiled ball bearings. The repeated shaking of unstabilized soil by earthquakes is one way water finds its way in. The sandy grains--separated from each other and the friction that holds them together--flow in a liquidy way.

This happened in San Francisco's Marina district in the 80s, in Alaska, in Kobe Port in the late 90s, and in New Zealand earlier this year. Now it is happening in Japan's Chiba prefecture.

Mangroves (2)

2011-04-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

It is hard to love that which you do not know. Ocean Expo Park in the northern part of Okinawa does its best to show us the marine life that ecologists ask us to care about. We know we are supposed to protect mangrove forests because they guard the sub-tropical coastlines and provide a habitat where delicate creatures can be nurtured.

It is not hard to see mangrove forests above the waterline--tangled branches and lush leaves, not so different from other trees. But it is below the waterline that they do their best work. The photo below is from an exhibit at Ocean Expo Park.

Not many trees manage to shelter birds and fishes at the same time, but that is what mangroves do. In this exhibit, you can see them at work.

Mangroves

2011-04-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

Earthquake! (2)

2011-03-11T18:48:00.001-08:00

Here is a link to the explanation of the Japanese earthquake intensity scale. This scale describes the earthquake in terms of human perceptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_seismic_intensity_scale

Earthquake!

2011-03-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to the record of the recent earthquakes that are devastating Japan. Please note that the times are NOT Japan time.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html

Snow in the Sub-tropics?

2010-06-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

This formation in a cave on Oki no Erabu island is called The Christmas Tree. It's cool in the cave, but not cool enough for real snow.

NPO: Marine Culture Research Association AGM

2010-05-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

The general meeting took place after the lecture at the Ryukyu Shimpo Hall in Naha, but the lecture was much more exciting than the meeting.

Another mystery!

One of the artifacts that turned up from Yonaguni and talked about at the lecture is a pillow-sized rock with a relief carving of what appears to be a water buffalo. Why a water buffalo? They are not now, nor never have been, native to the island.

A prosaic solution: Taiwan is just around the oceanic corner from Yonaguni, and there are water buffalo on Taiwan. Maybe the model for the relief carving came from Taiwan.

A more romantic solution: the model was not a real animal. What if it were modeled after the astrological Taurus?

There is a branch of archeology called archeo-astronomy. This is the study of ancient cultures that had a strong bias toward astrology, from the point of view of references to the constellations in the culture.

For instance, early Christians in the Mediterranean area used fish symbols. At the time of the birth of christianity, the spring equinox occured in the sign of the fish, Pisces. That may be a reason for the use of a fish symbol, and some archeo-astronomers believe that is the reason behind the wrath of Moses when he came down from the mountain and saw his followers worshipping a golden calf. He knew, if the ordinary people didn't, that the sun had moved on from Taurus through Aries to Pisces.

For another example, cows are sacred to the Hindu faith. Bulls are prominent in Hindu sculpture. One reason for this may be that the Hindu faith is believed to have begun some four millennia ago, when the spring equinox was in the sign of the bull, Taurus.

So. Might this water buffalo in relief be a clue to the age of Yonaguni? Or is it just a stone-age postcard from Taiwan?

The Gulf Methane Explosion and Yonaguni

2010-05-08T07:06:00.001-07:00

The tragic explosion of an oil well drilling rig off the coast of New Orleans brings up a factor in the Yonaguni submerged ruins survey. The common factor is methane gas.

One possible explanation for the US disaster involves a burst of methane gas rising upward from the sea floor, expanding, and exploding. The source of the methane gas may have been a pocket of frozen methane tapped by the drilling.

A legend about Yonaguni claims that the "real" Yonaguni island disappeared ages ago in a spectacular explosion. The island is not and never has been volcanic, so there is no possibility of a Krakatoa-like exploding volcano. But the sea around Yonaguni is pocketed with deposits of frozen methane.

This is not to say that the legend about the "real" Yonaguni's disappearance is true, as legends are beyond the realm of physical proof. The US disaster is, however, living proof of the destructive power of frozen methane when it thaws and expands and comes in contact with a detonating spark.

an island is born

2010-02-03T14:11:00.001-08:00

The big question about Yonaguni is, why did a part of the island sink and disappear? Destruction is part of the natural process, and can be tragic when it happens on a grand scale in places where people are making their homes. Haiti, for instance, today. Yonaguni, perhaps, a millennium ago.

On the other hand, the creation of new land is also part of the natural process.

At this very moment, a new island is struggling to be born in Tokyo's territorial waters. Billowing fumes rising from the sea, churning water dyed sulphuric yellow--these signs, visible at the tip of an arc that includes the volcanic island Ohshima and its sister islands, are indications that underwater eruptions are laying the foundation for a brand new island.

These indications were reported on February 3.

A Thought at Christmas Time

2009-12-25T18:20:00.000-08:00

One of the monuments underwater at Yonaguni is a pair of stone pillars with a narrow slit between them. At least, that is how they are thought to have looked when they were still standing. One idea concerning them suggests that the narrow--and very even--space between them might be related to the sun's position in the annual calendar.

Certainly, the ancient peoples of the world had a more intimate relationship with the sun than we seem to have today.

For instance...

Saturnalia—the ancient Roman festivities that took place in mid-December—may be the earliest verifiable ancestor of our Christmas/New Year festivities. Evergreens and holly probably have more to do with this tradition from frosty Europe than with the events in Mediterranean Bethlehem, as they symbolize faith in the return of the sun’s warmth and the regeneration of all that is green and growing, not to mention edible.

Japan has a tradition of reverence for the sun, too. Just look at the national flag—a red circle on a white background representing the rising sun. One of Japan’s preeminent geographers, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, wrote in one of his works that this showed a certain ecological wisdom. The American environmentalist Hazel Henderson would agree. Asked to place an economic value on solar energy, she replied, “Should we figure in the value of pre-warming the planet?” Without the sun, we might as well be Pluto.

Japan, too, tries to celebrate Christmas, but the festivities are more like Saturnalia—a way to brighten up a cold season that contains the shortest day and the longest night. Frankly, I like it. I like the idea of taking the given circumstances and making something out of them.

Makiguchi, the Japanese philosopher who gave our ancestors credit for recognizing the worth of solar light and warmth, didn’t advocate worshiping the sun as a god/goddess. Instead, he advocated a philosophy that asked, “Given your circumstances, what are you putting forth? What are you creating? What value are you adding to society?”

I like that thought a lot. Joy, cheer, an appropriate gift, breaking bread together! There are so many ways to put forth creative contributions out of our own particular circumstances.

Happy Holidays to All!

Giant Zipper in the Earth's Crust

2009-11-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

Why are the ruins at Yonaguni underwater? This is a big question. The easy answer is the global warming of an ancient era that raised sea levels and sunk coastal settlements. The more complicated answer concerns crustal movements--the changes that happen when the Earth's tender skin wrinkles or cracks.

A rare opportunity to watch crustal movement in action is happening now, in the desert of Ethiopia. A volcanic eruption and the flow of magma that split a rift through the desert has been likened by the scientists observing it to the opening of a giant zipper in the Earth's crust--one that is some 35 miles long.

Please follow the "tiny url" like below to see the whole story.

http://tinyurl.com/y8pgndu

Or, try cutting and pasting the original:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/giantcrackinafricawillcreateanewocean

A Natural Arch vs a Man-made One

2009-09-02T17:36:00.001-07:00

This is a natural arch, easily created by nature from coral-origin rock. The arch in the photo is on Tokunoshima, an island between Okinawa and Kyushu. Yonaguni's submerged ruins have a different kind of arch, one created by rocks piled on rocks. That kind of arch is a little harder for nature to make, but a simple accomplishment for human builders.

Annual General Meeting (2)

2009-06-23T19:36:00.000-07:00

The 4th annual meeting of the Marine Cultural Heritage Research Association was over in a jiffy. The main news was the new camera we had to buy in order to have our underwater research broadcast on TV. How cool is that?

We now own a high-definition underwater video camera--worth it because Channel 12 (Tokyo) broadcasts our research every other month. It cost almost as much as we have--I mean had--in the treasury. It's worth it because research has to be recorded.

This past year's research focussed on the submerged ruins off Chatan, on the main island of Okinawa. Chatan is not Yonaguni, and not being Yonaguni is both the good and the bad news. People are curious about Yonaguni, so not doing more there is a letdown. On the other hand, Chatan is easy to get to and, therefore, more divers can get involved.

Getting involved is good. A diving group from the University of Tokyo has offered their assistance. A group of independent divers from Osaka has also offered theirs.

MaCHRA is alive and growing.

Annual General Meeting

2009-06-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

I'm off to the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa for the annual meeting of the Marine Cultural Research Association. We'll hear what's new in Yonaguni.

You'll hear all about it on this weblog next week.

One Island's Experience

2009-06-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

Near Papua, New Guinea, there is a chain of islands that is expected to be underwater in another few years. Twice already the residents of the worst case island have tried to relocate to larger islands in the same ocean neighborhood. Twice they have been chased back to their original homes.

This story (reported by Neil MacFarquhar in the International Herald Tribune, May 30-31, 2009) about the Carteret Islands raises questions about the Yonaguni experience. The times may be different, but human nature is probably still the same.

Did the people of Yonaguni, like today's South Pacific islanders, know their homeland would end up underwater? Did they succeed in an orderly evacuation to a new home? Were they welcomed with open arms or were they driven away?

There are stone tablets in the collection of the Okinawa prefectural museum in Naha that seem to be telling a story in pictures and symbols. In his book, Dr. Kimura interprets the message as a tale of a hasty evacuation.

The thing is, the tablets are inscribed in a lost language. No one knows for sure if that was the last thing the people of Yonaguni ever wrote. Until the Rosetta Stone turned up, however, no one knew for sure what was written on the Egyptian pyramids, either. (Rosetta Stone: created in the 2nd century, BC, in Egypt; deciphered in the 19th century, CE, in France)

All the world's mysteries are not yet solved. Who will succeed in unraveling this one?

Meanwhile, in the South Pacific...

2009-06-01T03:19:00.000-07:00

Some people are looking around for new homes. Who will welcome refugees by the hundreds--make that 200 million within the next 40 years, according to the International Organization for Migration--when their islands slip beneath the waves? These are the islands you see on picture postcards--lots of white sand and crystal blue sea, a few palm trees, a ramshackle wooden deck.

So beautiful! But when the seasonal high tides roll in, they almost disappear. Almost...

How many years before they drop the "almost"?

Living Geology

2009-05-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

So much about geology is speculation about what might have happened in the misty, distant past. That's why the story about the glacier melting in Alaska at this very moment is so fascinating.

What happens when a glacier melts? Where does the water go? Obviously, it goes into the ocean, but then what? Does the ocean get deeper?

That's hard to measure, but in Alaska, the one thing that is easy to measure is that the land--not sea level--is what's rising.
(link to NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/science/earth/18juneau.html?hp)

What used to be a salmon stream is now a grassy path. What used to be a golf course with a driving range that flooded at high tide is now getting new links. This is all happening now and over the past fifty years.

Fifty years is plenty of time for people to react to their new geographic reality. But what about Yonaguni? When it went the other way--when it submerged--did it happen slowly enough for people to react? Or was it a sudden, disastrous geologic event.

No one knows. Yet.

Time Out

2009-04-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's Golden Week in Japan--a holiday studded spring break.
Yonaguni Tales will be continued after Golden Week.

Underwater Relics--What's There?

2009-04-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

Awesome! That's the first reaction to the submerged ruins off Yonaguni island in Okinawa. The second reaction is, why are they there? Who made them? What were they for?

As a first step towards answering all the questions their existence raises, we need to know in concrete terms what we are dealing with. That is why the work of the survey team, led by Dr. Masaaki Kimura, now professor emeritus of The University of the Ryukyus, is so important.

What, exactly, is down there, and how big is it?

Sometimes the team literally jumps in and measures things with a tape measure. Can you imagine standing still against the powerful stream of the Black Current while you hold your end of the tape against the rock being measured? Talk about awesome, it takes SCUBA skill and nerves of steel to come back with the data. The survey work began in 1992.

Systematic photographic surveys began in 1997. Again, awesome is the word.

As one of the photographers told me--a non diver--you do not roll off the boat and drop like a stone straight to the object you want to photograph. You and your equipment are at the mercy of a current that whips around the rocks like a freight train roaring downhill with the brakes off. It gets really interesting when you and the other members of the team, all carrying one essential piece of the necessary equipment, get separated. You can't exactly dial each other on the cell phone.

Now that the data fills several books and the film data would take almost a month to see in its entirety, it is easy to forget how very hard it is to acquire any data at all.

Marlin Fishing

2009-04-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

Something old, something new...

Marlin fishing is considered something new in Yonaguni. The island's reputation for "big game" fishing took off after the 1930's. A thousand pound fish certainly qualifies as big. Is it that marlin didn't swim there until the 1930's or that no one noticed they were there?

The Yonaguni ruins' popularity has been soaring since the turn of the millennium. It's not that they weren't there. It's just that nobody noticed.

2009-04-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

Home, Sweet Home

c. 10 millennia ago

2,000 km under the sea

2008-07-09T05:03:00.000-07:00

For me, a long swim is about five successive strokes. I cannot imagine swimming 1 kilometer, let alone two thousand kilometers. Fortunately, I will never have to. If I want to travel from Guam to Okinawa, I can take a plane.A sea turtle, however, has no choice but to swim the distance.

Recently, a female green sea turtle was tracked by satellite. A transmitter was attached to one of her feet after she laid eggs on a beach in Guam. For five months, nothing was heard from the turtle. When the signal was picked up again, the turtle was grazing on seaweed near the Okinawan island of Kume. (You can see Kume Island from the airport at Naha.)

Five months is a long time between e-mails. It seems that the satellite can only pick up the signal when the turtle surfaces. Five months is also a long time to hold one's breath. It's amazing that there exists a creature who can live underwater and also on land without struggling for air.

In Okinawan mythology, the turtle is the link between worlds--the world of humans and the world of the gods. Among the relics discovered at the underwater pyramid of Yonaguni is a statue of a turtle. That stone turtle is itself a link between two worlds--our world, and the lost world of whoever carved the statue.

Who were they? Why did they carve the statue there? Where did they go when their homeland submerged? These are some of the questions to which the NPO Marine Cultural Heritage Research Association is seeking answers.

Speaking of Stone ...

2008-07-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an arch from the gusuku at Zakimi.

This is a UN-recognized world heritage site. The original was built during the 15th century and, after its destruction by our 20th century's warfare, the walls were reconstructed.

Zakimi was built by the stonework genius, Gosamaru. Its signature feature is the keystone in the middle of the arch.

The views from the site are spectacular. It is open to the public and is located mid-island in the village of Yomitan.

Stone Troughs

2008-06-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

One of the on-land mysteries of Yonaguni is the hollowed-out stone troughs. They are knee deep, usually rectangular, about two to three feet in length. You see them everywhere, but what are they for?

I grew up watching TV cowboy shows in which Gabby Hayes always ended up dunked in the horses' watering trough, and to me, those stone containers look like tiny watering troughs for Yonaguni's tiny horses. Other guesses are: containers for a day's supply of water for household needs, vats in which to mash up grain or fruit to make wine, foot baths, and funerary urns.

With the passing of time, objects that once were in common use--things whose uses went without saying--end up as mysteries. For instance, if someone showed you one of Henry Ford's engine cranks, would you know what it was? Would you recognize a shoe button hook? How about George Washington's hair powder box?

The stone troughs scattered around Yonaguni are like that. A thousand or more years ago, no one had to ask what they were for. Is that what the future holds for I-pods?

World of Stones

2008-06-14T17:42:00.001-07:00

The underwater ruins at Yonaguni's Iseki Point meet the powerful Black Current head on. If they have been there for any length of time, anything light or portable will have washed away. It goes without saying that anything that could be dissolved in water or eaten away by marine life would also be gone. Only stone remains.

A typical feature of the ancient castle/fort/shrine structures known as gusuku in Okinawa is a surrounding wall made of piled up rocks and a stone-paved road. (see the photo from Shuri Castle in Naha) Underwater surveys of Iseki Point show a loop road with a retaining wall made of boulders held in place with smaller rocks.

The loop road and wall are good reasons to believe that Iseki Point was once part of a gusuku complex.

Yonaguni NPO Annual General Meeting

2008-06-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

June 7 was the big day. Membership is up. Sponsorship is up. What's more, media interest in Yonaguni is still strong. One of the attractions at the meeting was a screening of Discovery Channel's program on unsolved mysteries which featured Yonaguni's Iseki Point along with a site off Great Britain's Isle of Wight and another submerged site along the Indian coast.

Dr. Masaaki Kimura, chairman of the NPO Marine Cultural Heritage Research Association, is fond of quoting his favorite professor's advice to look for traces of the world's most ancient civilizations under water. The world's coastlines have changed drastically over the eons, and what used to be prime real estate is now submerged. He heard that advice some 40 years ago, and chose to act on it. It was interesting that the Discovery Channel program ended with the comment that future discoveries concerning mankind's past will not be made on land; they will be made at the bottom of the sea.

That means the relics at Yonaguni are part of the world's cultural heritage. If they are as old as many experts suspect--dating from 10,000 years ago--Iseki Point may be where the world's oldest building stands.

Homemade Submarine

2008-05-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

The submerged ruins at Yonaguni cover so much area that a diver cannot take in the entire panorama in a single view. A scuba diver has a little more than half an hour to see what he can, but a snorkeler or skin diver has only a minute or so.

One skin diver who made many dives at Yonaguni's Iseki Point was the man with the world's breath holding record, Jacques Mayol. He came up with a unique way to get a feel for the immense scope of the ruins in a single dive.

Jacques didn't like to be encumbered with scuba gear. On the other hand, he also acknowledged that even he--the dolphin man of the diving world--had limits to how long he could stay underwater without breathing. So what he did was design a board that he could hang on to and also steer up and down as he sped past the ruins at the end of a rope towed by a motorboat. He called the board his "bargain submarine". No windows, no seats, no periscope. Just a high-performance fin.

Because Yonaguni, as the first island to stand in its way, takes the brunt of the ferocious Black Current, even scuba divers have a hard time getting where they want to go at Iseki Point. So Jacques' feat was awesome in the extreme.

Between the violent current, the huge scale of the ruins, and the hammerhead sharks, I think I will wait until someone institutes tours by glass bottom boat.

Yonaguni--Just the Facts

2008-05-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

Japan's southwest is Okinawa, and Okinawa's southwest is Yonaguni. The island is about 10 kilometers wide from East to West and only about 4 kilometers long from North to South. It is home to some 1,800 fishermen, farmers, and their families. Yonaguni is also a popular destination for serious divers. Some come to swim among the hammerhead sharks that frequent the west coast of Yonaguni. Others come to take a closer look at the mysterious rock formation that a local diver named Iseki Point.

"Iseki" means "architectural relic". The star attraction at Iseki Point is a massive stone formation that pokes its head above the water 100 meters off the coast. It rises 25 meters from the sea floor, a rectangular shape that measures 250 by 150 meters.

Some say it looks like a flattened pyramid, the kind that rises in steps like the ones that are found in South or Central America. With its five rocky layers, I think it looks like Fred Flintstone's version of a ship--a stoneage ocean liner that ran aground within swimming distance of the coast.

In any case, it is so big that a diver cannot take it in all at once. Profiling the structure's dimensions was the first job undertaken by the survey team from The University of the Ryukyus. For those who have the opportunity to travel to Okinawa, a scale model of the ruins--based on the university's survey team's data--is on display in the Loisir Hotel (Naha) lobby.

Welcome to Yonaguni

2008-05-21T04:15:00.000-07:00

Yonaguni floats in the East China Sea at 23.5 degrees North latitude, like a buoy marking the Tropic of Cancer. It is the westernmost point in Japan, and also the point farthest South. On a clear day, you can see Taiwan from Yonaguni, but you cannot see the other islands in the Okinawa chain.

The tiny and remote island Yonaguni is becoming a household word in English because of the mysterious construction submerged off its shore. Perhaps it was a pyramid, because it is composed of several layers that get progressively smaller towards the top. Perhaps it was a gusuku, the Okinawan word for a castle/fort/shrine. It may have been nothing more than an ancient quarry, or it may have been nothing at all--simply a freak of nature.

In this weblog, I will write about various aspects of the riddle of Yonaguni's submerged objet with the help of Dr. Masaaki Kimura, professor emeritus of The University of the Ryukyus and the man in charge of exploring Yonaguni's underwater mystery.