The Mound in the sea of Galilee

Another mysterious underwater building we would like to introduce to you is the Mound in the sea of Galilee. Scientists found the discovery by mistake in 2003 when surveying the lake's bottom with sonar, but their findings were only recently published. Israeli researchers led by Prof. Shmulik Marco of Tel Aviv University discovered a third-century BCE stone mound in the Sea of Galilee, which was recently described in the Journal of Nautical Archaeology (Lake Kinneret to Israelis).

Israeli archaeologists are perplexed by a massive cone-shaped structure sunk beneath the waves of the Sea of Galilee, writes Faisal O'Keefe in Cities from Greenprophet. A mystery cone-shaped building on the bottom of the Sea of Galilee, twice the diameter of Stonehenge and weighing more than ten elephants, is defying archaeologists to determine its purpose and antiquity.

"We just bumped into it," says Shmuel Marco, a Tel Aviv University geophysicist who worked on the research. They said that usually, the bottom of the lake was quite smooth. They were surprised to find a large mound. Initially, they hadn't realized the importance of this but they consulted with a couple of archaeologists, and they said it looked like an unusually large Bronze Age statue.

“The shape and composition of the submerged structure do not resemble any natural feature. We, therefore, conclude that it is man-made and might be termed a cairn,” the researchers write, implying that the subaquatic bulge may have designated a burial location. The researchers compare their find to other ancient, megalithic structures discovered near the Sea of Galilee, such as the monumental site of Khirbet Beteiha, which is located 19 kilometers northeast of theirs. That structure is made up of three concentric stone rings, the largest of which measures 184 feet in diameter. If their assumption about a third-millennium BCE date is right, this structure would lie about a mile north of an ancient city called "Bet Yerah" or "Khirbet Kerak."

Location: the Sea of Galilee in Israel
Depth: 9m
Dating: 2,000 - 12,000 years old