The City Beneath Issyk-Kul
Legends said cities lay drowned under a great mountain lake in Kyrgyzstan. Divers have found streets and buildings beneath the water.
What was reported
Lake Issyk-Kul, high in the Tian Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan, is one of the largest mountain lakes in the world. Local legends told of towns swallowed by its waters, and fishermen sometimes pulled up old pots and bricks in their nets.
Underwater archaeologists have explored the shallows near the village of Toru-Aygyr, a few metres below the surface, and found the remains of brick buildings, a mill, ceramic vessels and a cemetery.
Explanations offered
Archaeologists think a powerful earthquake in the early 1400s caused part of a medieval Silk Road trading town to sink beneath the lake. The legends had a real basis, though there was no single lost city of gold. Surveys of the lake bed continue.
- When
- Flooded in the early 1400s; surveyed from the 2000s
- Where
- Toru-Aygyr, Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan
- Witnesses
- Local fishermen and archaeologists
- Status
- Partly confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.