Portuguese news reported the discovery of a very large under water pyramid first discovered by Diocleciano Silva between the islands of São Miguel and Terceira in the Azores of Portugal.
According to claims, the structure is said to be perfectly squared and oriented by the cardinal points.
Current estimates obtained using GPS digital technology put the height at 60 meters with a base of 8000 square meters.
The Portuguese Hydrographic Institute of the Navy currently has the job of analyzing the data to determine whether or not the structure is man-made.
“The pyramid is perfectly shaped and apparently oriented by the cardinal points,” Silva told Diário Insular, the local newspaper.
The pyramid was found in an area of the mid-Atlantic that has been underwater for about 20,000 years. Considering this is around the time of the last ice age where glaciation was melting from its peak 2000 years prior, whatever civilization, human or not, that was around before the ice age, could be responsible for building the pyramid.
While the Portuguese Navy still hasn’t determined the origins, many might question why this hasn’t been first reported on sooner than late 2012. Certainly the NOAA who studies volcanic activity in the area of the pyramid would have discovered the pyramid through sonar imaging and so forth since the area is heavily studied due to volcanic activity.
Either the NOAA hasn’t yet come across it, they are hiding what they have found, or the pyramid doesn’t exist. The last theory does not seem to be likely given the authenticity of the find.
Most recently, archeologists from the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research (APIA) have identified archaeological evidence on Pico island that supports their belief that human occupation of the Azores predates the arrival of the Portuguese by many thousands of years.
The evidence comprises of a great variety of protohistoric pyramidal rock structures, some of them 13 meters tall. The structures may have been built according to an oriented plan, aligned with the summer solstices, which suggests they were built with an intended purpose.
The Azorean archipelago was discovered uninhabited by the Portuguese around 1427.
Last year, archaeologists claimed to have found rock art on the island of Terceira, which they believe to be many thousands of years old.
In the last three years, a variety of ancient archaeological remains have been identified on all the nine islands of the Azorean archipelago. They include an epigraph from Roman times, Carthaginian sanctuaries, cave art, and megalithic structures.
Archaeologists working on site believe the structures were created by ancestral occupiers of the island suggesting they were places of worship with funeral ritual purposes. They have said that dozens of similar structures have been identified in the Madalena area of Pico island.
According to APIA’s archeologists Nuno Ribeiro and Anabela Joaquinito, artifacts were also found on site which may predate the Portuguese settlement on the island. They believe the structures may have been built according to an oriented plan, aligned with the summer solstices, which suggests they were built with an intended purpose.
They also believe that the Madalena pyramidal structures, known by the locals as “maroiços,” are analogous to similar protohistoric structures found in Sicily, North Africa and the Canary islands which are known to have served ritual purposes.
Dozens of pre-Christian hypogea were found in the islands of Terceira and Corvo in the Azores , according to the president of the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research (APIA), Nuno Ribeiro.
The old monuments are believed to be over 2000 years old. There are also indications that there may be additional hypogea sites on the island of Flores.
“Dozens of these structures are visible, and everything indicates that these are very ancient monuments, found in areas where there was no agriculture,” said the president of APIA.
The monuments in question were found on these two places during an outing that archeologist Nuno Ribeiro made in August 2010. “The structures indicate they were used as burials thousands of years ago,” he admitted.
According to the APIA president, “These kinds of monuments have parallels in the Mediterranean world, and the Greek and Carthaginian cultures, and were used for burials.” He also acknowledged that the structures may have more than two thousand years,” and noted that the dating “must be substantiated and investigated.”
Speaking of the importance of these monuments, Ribeiro believes that “it is possible that human presence in the islands precedes the Portuguese occupation.” According to him, a project will be presented by the end of March to the international scientific community, to ascertain the antiquity of the findings.
The archaeological findings in the Azores were presented at the XV Congress SUM 2011, Archaeology of the Mediterranean, which was held at the University of Catania (Sicily, Italy), with the particpation of archaeologists from the APIA.
The Azores are an interesting region as they are a chain of nine volcanic islands in three main groups that are roughly 930 miles west of Lisbon. They are all situated around the fault lines between the North American, Eurasian and African tectonic plates. An interesting place to have a pyramid given the energetic qualities often associated with pyramids.
