Plumbing the depths of lost ancient city

Twenty-one years later and he’s swapped the tiles of Edinburgh’s long-gone swimming pool for the ancient pottery of a long-dead Greek culture.

Now an underwater archaeologist, he’s been leading a team of experts in an attempt to uncover the secrets of the world’s oldest submerged city, lying deep below the azure waters of the Mediterranean. A city which could have inspired the Atlantis myth.

This Sunday, a BBC documentary will see the former Edinburgh University archaeology student and his team use underwater technology to investigate the site of Pavlopetri, a city which thrived for 2000 years before it sank beneath the waves off the southern coast of Greece.

With the help of computer-generated imagery (CGI) they will also raise it once more from the seabed, revealing for the first time in 3500 years how it would once have looked.

Pavlopetri’s stone buildings and complex layout of streets lies less than five metres below the surface of the sea, and although it was originally discovered in 1967, it has taken until now to be excavated properly.

“It is incredibly exciting,” says Jon, now an associate professor at Nottingham University’s department of archaeology. “And it’s a long way away from Infirmary Street swimming pool.

“There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world. It is from the Mycenaean period but we have now discovered pottery going back to 3500BC, so the beginnings of the settlement are 5000 years old - long before the glory days of classical Greece.

“We can see that Pavlopetri has gone from being a farming society to an urban one based on trade and linking up with different cities in the Mediterranean. It is fascinating.”

He adds: “When I was a boy I had a book about submerged cities and Pavlopetri was in it. I used to dream about swimming above it and looking down on it. Now I’m down there, among its streets. It is a dream come true.”

Jon’s excitement at being involved in the project is palpable, especially as the majority of his work usually involves being in the cold waters of Scottish lochs rather than the warmth of Greece’s coastal seas.

He remembers clearly that first dive in the Edinburgh municipal pool.

Read more:http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/features/Plumbing-the-depths-of-lost.6848682.jp

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