YONAGUNI MONUMENT

The Yonaguni monument, sometimes incorrectly called a pyramid, lies in about thirty meters of water, south of the Japanese island of Yonaguni (more on its discovery here); in fact Yonaguni is much more closer to Taiwan than Japan, see the bottom picture. The monument, 150 meters in length, looks like a multi-layered platform, with all kinds of connecting "staircases", that seems to have some ceremonial purpose; around it are many other, smaller constructions that look equally artificial. The following picture collage, from a German website, provides a quick overview of the main features that make part of the monument and its surroundings. These pictures look slightly electronically sharpened compared with the other underwater images (or else they had almost perfect diving conditions), but they do not really modify what is there. A further look at the monument and its site is best started with overviews and maps of the site to make sense of what you see in the more detailed galleries.

Yonaguni, one of the Yaeyama islands, is here an invisible speck at the left of the box. In fact, it is the most western point of official Japan. The big island to its left is Taiwan, which is visible from it some days of the year.