Revealing Britain’s own underwater ‘Atlantis’

Now the truth of the lost city of Dunwich's current location is set to be revealed with the production of the first-ever map of the seabed over the area of the former city.

The map is being drawn up following last week's successful exploration of the seabed off the coast of Suffolk using the latest underwater acoustic imaging technology.

Professor David Sear, of the University of Southampton, and marine archaeologist Stuart Bacon, led a team investigating the ancient sunken city to assess the existence of any remains of the once-thriving 14th Century port.

The city was almost wiped out thanks to storms, erosion and floods, and poor underwater visibility at the site has previously prevented anyone discovering exactly how much of the medieval city remained.

But now, thanks to the data collected from the recent expedition, a clearer picture of the city's current resting place is emerging.

Professor Sear said: "Our recent discoveries were hugely exciting. It is the first time anyone has seen the seaned over the entire site in this level of detail.

"We collected data from side scan sonar, multi-beam bathymetry and sub-bottom profiling which penetrated through the sediment layers. These have revealed a much more complex seafloor than we were expecting and scattered over this are a number of interesting side-scan sonar targets that may be associated with the remains of the medieval city.

"Now we have to mosaic all the data together to build it into the first map of the city site on the seabed."

He added that once the data had been processed they would be able to look at any interesting areas and see how they relate to each other and whether they correspond with any known locations of larger structures such as churches or former quaysides.

"For the most promising and interesting areas we would plan to get divers down to see exactly what is there. We will now know exactly where to go and will be able to deploy them straight over the site," said Professor Sear.

They hope to be able to carry out the dives later this summer and will be looking for funding to finance this.

The current survey is being funded by a £20,000 donation from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and £5,000 from English Heritage. The GeoData Institute, a University of Southampton-based research and consultancy group, is managing the project and dealing with collation and digital capture of the data and interpretation, while EMU Ocean Survey are conducting the actual survey.

The findings of the survey will be presented as a new public display for the Dunwich Museum, documenting the technology used and what the project has revealed of the lost city.